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THE   MONUMENTS   OF   CHRISTIAN  ROME 


HANDBOOKS   OF 

ARCHAEOLOGY  and  ANTIQUITIES 

Edited  by  Professor  Percy  Gardner,  Litt.D.,  of  the  University 
of  Oxford,  and  Professor  FRANCIS  W.  Kelsey,  of  the  University  of 
Michigan.     With  Illustrations.     Ex.  crown  8vo. 

Greek  Sculpture.  By  Ernest  A.  Gardner,  M.A.  New  edition 
with  Appendix.  Part  I.  Part  II.  Complete  in  one  volume. 
Appendix  separately. 

Greek  and  Roman  Coins.  By  G.  F.  Hill,  of  the  Coins  Depart- 
ment of  the  British  Museum, 

The  Roman  Festivals   of  the  Period  of  the  Republic.     By  W. 

Warde  Fowler,  M.A. 

A  Handbook  of  Greek  Constitutional  History.  By  A.  H.  J. 
Greenidge,  M.A.     With  Map. 

The  Destruction  of  Ancient  Rome.  A  Sketch  of  the  History  of  the 
Monuments.     By  Professor  RODOLFO  Lanciani. 

Roman  Public  Life.     By  A.  H.  J.  Greenidge,  M.A. 

Christian  Art  and  Archaeology.  A  Handbook  to  the  Monuments 
of  the  Early  Church.     By  W.  LovVRiE,  M.A. 

Grammar  of  Greek  Art.   By  Professor  Percy  Gardner. 

Life  in  Ancient  Athens.  The  Social  and  Public  Life  of  a  Classical 
Athenian  from  Day  to  Day.     By  Professor  T.  G.  TUCKER,  Litt.D. 


THE   MACMILLAN    COMPANY 


THE   MONUMENTS 
OF   CHRISTIAN   ROME 

PROM  CONSTANTINE  TO  THE  RENAISSANCE 


BY 


AETHUR  L.  FROTHINGHAM,  Ph.D. 

SOMETIME   ASSOCIATE   DIRECTOR   OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOOIi 

AT   ROME,    AND   PROFESSOR   OF   ARCHAEOLOGY  AND 

ANCIENT  HISTORY  AT   PRINCETON 

UNIVERSITY 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

1908 

All  rights  reserved 


Copyright,  1908, 
By  the  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotypcd.     Published  December,  1908. 


Nortoooli  i^rfgg 

J.  S.  Gushing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 

Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


TO  MY  FATHER 


CONTENTS 


V6y 


<^u 


ri 


Prologue 


PAGE 
1 


PART   I 
HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

CJIAPTEB 

I.  The  City  op  Constantine  and  Honorius  . 

II.  Rome  from  Alaric  to  Theodoric  the  Goth    . 

III.  Rome  under  Theodoric 

IV.  Rome  after  the  Gothic  Wars  :   the  Byzantine  City 
V.  The  Carlovingian  City  and  the  Dark  Age    . 

VI.     Rome  before  and  after  the  Guiscard  Fire  . 
VII.     Rome  under  the  Great  Medieval  Popes 
VIII.     Rome  during  the  Papal  Exile  .... 


17 

62 

69 

76 

103 

116 

133 

145 


PART   II 

CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  MONUMENTS 

Basilicas 155 

Campanili  or  Bell-towers 190 

Cloisters 195 


Civil  Architecture 
Military  Architecture  . 
Sculpture  .         .         .         . 

Painting 

Roman  Artists 
Art  in  the  Roman  Province 
Artistic  Influence  of  Rome 
Index  


Index  of  Illustrations  . 
Index  List  of  Churches 


208 
216 
222 
254 
343 
359 
378 
385 
395 
403 


VII 


219199 


K 


PROLOGUE 


The  complexity  of  Rome  is  at  once  an  allurement  and  a 
source  of  despair.  As  a  growing  modern  capital  it  turns  its 
back  upon  its  past,  and  as  a  historic  museum  it  bristles  with 
periods  and  styles  so  varied  they  cannot  be  set  forth  with 
the  lucidity  that  makes  the  art  of  Athens  comparatively  easy 
to  grasp. 

The  present  epitome  of  one  group  of  these  phases  reflects 
the  artistic  life  of  Rome  as  a  Christian  city  and  the  general 
features  of  its  history  and  culture  from  the  day  when  the  Em- 
peror Constantine  stopped  the  era  of  persecution  and  raised 
the  Christian  Labarum  as  his  standard,  until  that  when  the 
mediaeval  Papacy,  after  a  glorious  history,  was  forced  to  ab- 
dicate its  world-power  and  to  leave  Rome  for  Avignon,  reduc- 
ing the  city  to  the  lowest  ebb  of  desolation. 

When  Rome  rises  again  under  the  Popes  of  the  Renaissance, 
it  will  not  be  by  its  own  efforts  or  with  its  peculiar  traits 
unchanged.  The  new  Rome  will  be  a  composite  picture  reflect- 
ing the  handiwork  of  Tuscans,  of  Lombards  and  of  Umbrians : 
a  Rome  at  war  with  itself,  tearing  frantically  at  its  own  his- 
toric vitals  and  every  day  making  a  mock  and  travesty  of  its 
past.     Rome  of  the  Romans  is  no  more. 

This  old  Rome  from  Constantine  to  the  Renaissance  is 
itself  a  varied  pageant.  For  nearly  two  centuries  after  his 
death  it  remained  a  decapitalized,  unambitious  Rome,  pauper- 
ized by  imperial  bounty,  drunk  with  corruption,  hypnotized  by 
vile  plays,  indifferent  to  apostles,  occupied  with  a  round  of 
baths,  games  and  gossip,  clogged  with  a  surfeit  of  villas,  fine 
raiment  and  delicate  eating,  careless  of  the  crumbling  away 
of  the  ancient  world  about  it  under  the  blows  of  the  bar- 
barians. ,    ,  ,    ,,, 

•  ■uw/    ■::■'•' 


2  PROLOGUE 

In  this  Eome  primitive  Christianity  was  trying  to  grasp 
the  hearts  of  the  people  and  the  reins  of  power ;  reaching  out 
successfully  when  led  by  such  men  as  Popes  Sylvester,  Damasus 
and  Leo  the  Great.  And  yet,  while  fighting  indifference  and 
depravity,  the  Church  was  itself  becoming  contaminated  with 
luxury  and  worldliness.  Pagan  writers  were  able  to  jeer  at 
ecclesiastical  dandies  and  ladies'  men;  at  papal  wealth  and 
worldly  influence.  This  was  the  side  of  Christian  Eome  that 
formed  the  despair  of  S.  Jerome  and  sent  so  many  of  its  saints 
in  flight  to  the  mountains  and  monasteries  of  Palestine  and 
the  deserts  of  Egypt,  so  many  of  its  earnest,  ambitious  men  to 
Constantinople,  so  many  of  its  literary  lights  to  Southern 
Gaul. 

But  then,  before  the  last  echoes  of  paganism  had  ceased 
to  reverberate,  or  asceticism  had  commenced  to  supersede  the 
delights  of  the  flesh,  the  hand  of  the  Lord  was  stretched  out, 
and  there  came  a  blank.  For  forty  days  Eome  was  silent  in 
the  wake  of  the  Goths :  Senate,  Church,  corporations,  populace, 
were  scattered  to  all  quarters,  —  Constantinople,  Sicily,  Gaul, 
Dalmatia,  Egypt,  Palestine,  —  never  to  be  reunited. 

When,  during  the  latter  half  of  the  sixth  century  and  after 
the  horrors  of  a  great  plague  had  followed  the  long  war,  the 
walls  of  Eome  began  once  more  to  shelter  a  small  but  motley 
population,  it  bore  little  resemblance  in  numbers  or  character 
to  that  of  the  past.  There  was  no  aristocracy;  there  were 
no  organized  corporations  of  the  people.  The  newcomers 
were  mostly  of  humble  birth.  They  called  themselves  no  longer 
by  the  old  high-sounding  triple  Eoman  names,  —  no  Junius 
Bassus  or  Flavins  Maximus,  —  but  simple  John  and  Paul. 
All  were  poor,  but  none  were  pauperized.  They  worked  for 
their  bread  instead  of  receiving  it  from  imperial  or  papal 
bounty.  They  knew  of  no  public  baths  nor  loitering  places, 
no  circus  nor  theatre.  They  were  a  Christian  people  dealing 
with  stern  and  sad  realities,  for  whom  paganism  and  its  delights 
were  as  an  unreal  dream,  and  the  great  deserted  ghost-like 
city  a  weight  and  a  nightmare.  •' 

To  this  people  the  monks  of  the  East  soon  came  as  familiar 
spirits,  and  found  themselves  as  much  at  home  on  the  seven 


PROLOGUE  3 

deserted  hills  as  in  "the  deserts  of  Egypt  and  Syria.  Asceti- 
cism was  now  as  much  in  the  eye  of  the  people  as  self-indul- 
gence had  been  in  that  of  the  Rome  of  Constantine  and 
Honorius. 

This  new  Byzantine  and  monastic  Rome,  some  two  centuries 
in  the  making,  was  a  stern  school  to  retemper  the  spirit.  It 
bred  a  people  ready  to  leap  forward  to  the  opportunities  of  the 
Carlovingian  era,  a  Papacy  and  a  clergy  ready  to  make  of 
Rome  once  again  a  city  with  a  mission. 

Mission  of  Rome.  —  In  the  days  of  the  Early  and  Middle 
Empire  from  Augustus  to  the  Antonines  its  mission  had  been 
imperium  with  lihertas  and  the  pax  romana  :  the  universal 
pervasion  of  law  and  order.  To  this  material  and  political 
mission,  after  a  long  vacation,  the  new  Rome  was  about  to 
substitute  another  imperium,  equally  universal,  but  less  mate- 
rial, an  imperium  of  ideas  in  which  the  relation  of  politics  to 
religion  was  reversed.  For  the  Roman  Empire,  the  imperial 
worship  that  overspread  all  particular  religions  had  been  the 
necessary  handmaid  of  political  unity,  as  giving  the  ideal 
raison-d^^tre  of  imperialism.  With  the  Roman  Church  the 
moves  on  the  political  chess-board  were  subordinated  to  the 
supposed  exigencies  of  a  religious  world-policy  which  aimed 
as  stringently  as  the  old  order  had  at  unity  and  centralization, 
at  healthy  local  development  under  the  impulse  of  the  Roman 
idea.  Bishops  and  abbots  took  the  place  of  imperial  prefects 
and  legates,  and  under  them  the  local  clergy  and  monks  formed 
the  army  of  occupation.  Vaguely  groped  after  as  a  general 
system  and  variously  conceived,  it  was  systematized  in  its 
religious  and  moral  hegemony  during  the  fifth  century  by 
Leo  the  Great,  and  afterward  by  S.  Gregory ;  it  was  given  a 
basis  of  material  power  through  the  conception  of  the  political 
States  of  the  Church  under  the  Carlovingian  Popes  Hadrian 
and  Leo  III ;  and  it  was  finally  brilliantly  perfected  in  all  its 
aspects  in  the  eleventh  century  by  Gregory  VII,  the  great 
Hildebrand,  at  a  time  when  the  mediseval  mind  was  both  most 
clearly  logical  and  most  deeply  religious,  at  the  beginning  of 
the  age  of  scholasticism  and  the  Crusades.  Under  this  Roman 
banner  of  reform  and  Christian  democracy,  great  ideas  and 


4  PROLOGUE 

impulses  swept  over  Europe,  altruism  got  the  better  of  self- 
ishness, the  great  monastic  orders  redeemed  the  land  and  the 
people,  and  the  arts  of  civilization  took  giant  strides  along 
national  lines  during  this  golden  age  of  the  twelfth  and  thir- 
teenth centuries. 

Roman  People.  —  What,  then,  of  the  people  of  Rome  and  the 
art  of  Rome  ?     What  was  their  part  in  this  long  transforma- 


Ponte  Nomentano,  across  Anio,  near  Rome. 
Ancient  bridge,  with  mediaeval  fortifications. 

tion  ?  What  was  their  relation  to  the  Papacy  ?  That  is  one 
fascination  of  the  sphinx-like  city.  We  think  of  mediaeval 
Rome,  if  we  do  not  really  know  it,  as  identical  with  the  Pa- 
pacy, as  saying  its  dutiful  amen  to  Church  policy.  How 
unexpected  it  is  to  know  the  people  as  they  really  were,  tur- 
bulent and  hot-headed,  the  first  in  Europe  to  establish  a  proud 
and  powerful  feudal  nobility  in  the  Carlovingian  era,  culmi- 
nating in  their  Alberics  and  their  Crescentii;  the  first  to 
organize  a  great  civilian  army  of  militia  in  the  eighth  century, 
when  they  were  also  the  first  to  build  a  mediaeval  war  fleet 
and  defeat  the  Saracen  invaders. 

Riddling  their  city  with  towers  and  fortresses,  mostly  reared 
on  antique  ruins  ;  scattering  huge  castles  over  every  hilltop 


PROLOGUE  5 

and  crag  in  the  province ;  driving  out  Pope  after  Pope  in  jeal- 
ous defence  of  their  civic  rights,  and  yet  so  proud  of  the 
Papacy  as  to  be  unwilling  to  live  without  it.  Keady  to  accept 
imperial  aid  against  the  Papacy,  and  yet  rising,  regardless  of 
odds  and  unpreparedness,  against  any  German  Emperor  who 
came,  with  trained  armies,  to  be  crowned  Roman  Emperors  of 
the  West,  if  they  happened  to  offend  the  fierce  and  boundless 
Roman  pride.  Small  wonder  that,  like  any  organism  without 
a  single  aim,  this  secular  Rome  never  attained  to  fulness  of 
structure. 

This  is  the  heart  of  Rome :  illogical,  inconsecutive  and  pas- 
sion-tossed, an  image  of  the  frowning,  rugged,  jagged,  ruined 
city,  with  its  harsh  contrasts,  so  different  in  its  lack  of  unity 
from  the  purely  mediseval,  well-ordered,  single-eyed  cities  of 
Middle  and  Northern  Italy.  The  spectre  of  the  ancient  world 
still  loomed  before  the  imagination,  gigantic  and  irritating, 
spurring  men  on  to  things  they  did  not  themselves  under- 
stand, as  if  all  afflicted  by  what  alienists  call  the  mania  of 
grandeur,  from  the  days  of  the  political  reformer,  Alberic,  to 
those  of  the  dreamer.  Cola  di  Rienzo. 

Such  men  as  these  Romans  became  incomparable  agents 
when  they  could  subordinate  their  wills  to  a  system,  to  an 
organism  like  the  Papacy.  Such  a  people  did  not  lack  imagi- 
nation. There  were  always  those  among  them  who  could 
turn  their  peculiar  gifts  in  the  direction  of  art;  who  could 
understand  how  to  wield  art  as  an  instrument  of  religion,  as 
one  of  the  greatest  means  for  obtaining  the  universal  dominion 
in  the  field  of  ideas,  that  always  appealed  to  a  Roman ;  a  do- 
minion which  Rome  alone  could  gain  in  those  early  mediaeval 
days  when  all  Western  culture  was  to  be  made  anew  and  largely 
on  a  Teutonic  groundwork. 

In  fact  the  Roman  clergy  and  people  were  in  their  very  race 
and  organization  since  the  Gothic  wars,  ideally  prepared  for 
such  a  mission,  for  they  were  compounded  of  the  antique  race, 
of  Byzantine  settlers  of  Greek  and  Oriental  origin,  and  of 
northerners  of  many  tribes;  yet  all,  after  long  seething  and 
attrition,  fused  into  a  characteristic  and  fascinating  unit  by  the 
two  powers  of  Roman  tradition  and  of  the  living  Papacy.     So 


6  PROLOGUE 

that  it  was  by  no  means  the  Popes  alone  who  were  patrons  of 
art  in  Rome  :  to  the  upper  clergy  and  the  nobility  the  majority, 
in  fact,  of  the  monuments  was  due,  and,  as  we  shall  see,  some 
of  the  most  flourishing  artistic  decades  were  those  when  the 
Popes  were  exiles. 

II 

Periods. — In  a  scientific  analysis  Eome's  epos  from  Con- 
stantine  to  Avignon  falls  naturally  into  three  books.  The 
first  tells  of  the  composite  pagan-Christian  city  of  the  latter 
days  of  the  Empire,  the  life  in  death  of  ancient  culture,  the 
new  wine  in  old  bottles  full  of  sediment,  with  the  after-glow 
of  Theodoric  the  Goth  temporarily  galvanizing  the  effete 
organism  until  the  final  fall  of  the  curtain  during  those  famous 
forty  days  of  the  Gothic  war  when  Rome  is  said  to  have  been 
completely  deserted.  There  are  two  centuries  and  a  half  in 
this  first  book  (311-546). 

The  second  book  deals  with  a  new  Eome  hiding  within  the 
old,  dimly  steeped  in  its  memories,  but  ignorant  of  the  reali- 
ties of  its  ancient  life  and  luxuries :  an  ascetic  city  weaving 
fables  about  a  corrupt  and  decadent  society  of  the  past  and 
drawing  its  real  life  from  Byzantium  and  its  guidance  from 
the  Papacy.  Its  first  chapter  shows  us  an  almost  purely 
Byzantine  Rome ;  while  in  its  second  chapter  the  AYestern 
elements  reassert  themselves  with  the  Carlovingian  dynasty 
in  the  lead  and  the  converted  northern  nations  all  bursting 
into  vigorous  life.  But  this  life  was  not  fused  by  a  quicken- 
ing spirit ;  it  went  out  like  the  bursting  of  a  rocket,  aiid  the 
second  chapter  of  the  epic  closes,  after  a  final  century  cf  life- 
lessness,  at  an  even  more  discouraging  and  lower  level  of 
achievement  than  the  first.  It  had  lasted  twice  as  long,  for 
nearly  five  centuries  (546-c.  1050). 

As  the  second  stage  had  opened  with  a  Gregory  the  Great, 
the  third  and  final  book  of  the  epic  was  ushered  in  by  the 
work  of  another  Pope  Gregory,  the  great  Hildebrand,  at  first 
the  motive  power  behind  several  Popes,  then  himself  in  the 
chair.  We  are  now  in  the  creative  stage  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
the  days  of  quick  living,  of  self-sacrifice,  of  idealism,  of  con- 


PROLOGUE  7 

centrated  purpose.  The  contest  for  supremacy  between  the 
Imperial  and  Papal  ideas,  the  movement  of  the  Crusades,  the 
all-pervading  work  of  the  monastic  orders,  the  intellectual  and 
moral  resurrection  of  the  Church  and  of  societ}^,  are  among  the 
factors  that  raise  these  centuries  above  the  petty  policies  of  the 
material  period  that  is  to  follow.  Rome  was  then  more  than 
ever  a  centre  of  Western  life,  the  main  lever  and  leaven  of 
Europe.  AYhat  she  would  have  done  had  not  her  career  been 
cut  short  in  the  midst  of  strenuous  achievement  by  the  flight  to 
Avignon,  is  one  of  the  unsolved  dreams  of  history  ! 

Art  of  Christian  Rome.  —  While  the  supreme  role  of  Rome 
and  the  Papacy  has  filled  a  large  place  in  the  scholarly 
thought  that  has  given  us  pictures  of  these  ten  centuries, 
almost  nothing  has  been. written  of  her  role  in  the  sphere  of 
art  history.  And  yet,  as  the  grip  of  the  Papacy  upon  the 
Western  world  grew  stronger,  Rome  was  once  more  called 
upon  to  furnish  art-types  and  models,  and  to  give  artistic 
education  and  direction,  exactly  as  ancient  Rome  had 
done  for  so  many  of  her  provinces  under  the  Early 
Empire. 

Why  is  it  that  what  is  so  self-evident  for  the  Roman 
Empire  has  not  been  recognized  as  true  for  the  Middle  Ages  ? 
Perhaps  because  the  Christian  art  of  Rome  was  far  from 
simple,  being  compounded  with  Hellenic  and  Oriental  elements, 
so  that  its  track  is  not  so  plain  to  the  eye  as  that  of  its  less 
complex  pagan  predecessor.  Perhaps  also  because  its  artistic 
teaching  was  now  so  much  more  in  the  domain  of  the  spirit 
than  of  matter,  that  its  traces  are  the  more  subtle  and  the  less 
demonstrable.  But  as  the  fundamental  axiom  of  art  criticism 
for  the  Christian  period  is  the  indissoluble  union  of  art  with 
theology  and  liturgy,  and  as  it  is  a  truism  that  all  the  nations 
of  the  North  owed  their  conversion  directly  or  indirectly  to 
Rome,  and  got  from  her  the  form,  decoration  and  furniture, 
the  music  and  liturgy  of  their  churches  and  monasteries,  and 
even  the  relics  of  their  saints ;  it  is  the  inevitable  conclusion 
that,  whatever  differences  may  have  arisen  through  local 
peculiarities  and  with  certain  reservations  as  to  decorative 
motifs,  Rome  was  the  ultimate  source  of  the  art  of  all  Europe 


8  PROLOGUE 

in  the  early  Middle  Ages,  even  of  that  of  the  Frank,  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  and  Germanic  nations. 

As  art  had  become  the  "bible  of  the  poor,"  and  its  works 
were  dedicated  to  "  the  people  of  God,"  the  Church  was  now  the 
one  common  and  civilizing  centre  of  the  city.  And  of  this  art 
Rome  held  the  double  key,  that  of  its  technique  and  that  of  its 
ideas.  Rome  also  had  in  the  hollow  of  her  hand,  through  the 
organization  of  the  Papacy,  the  bishops  and  abbots  of  all  Euro- 
pean churches,  the  men  who  guided  the  hands  of  all  the  artists 
of  the  time. 

To  know  the  Christian  art  of  Rome,  then,  means  far  more 
than  it  seems.  It  transcends  the  city  and  the  land;  it  joins 
hands  with  the  East  and  the  North  throughout  the  ages  of  vital 
Christianity.  Yet  even  now,  in  this  advanced  age  of  art  criti- 
cism, the  knowledge  of  the  history  of  this  Roman  art  is  in  a 
condition  that  can  only  be  described  as  infantile. 

Problems  in  Architecture.  —  Among  the  causes  of  this  lacuna 
the  first  is  the  unique  unity  of  the  Roman  style  of  church 
architecture  and  painting  during  a  thousand  years  of  history,  a 
unity  which  has  made  critics  despai'r  of  certainty  in  dating 
many  of  its  buildings  and  their  decoration.  A  second  cause  is 
the  indiscriminate  slaughter  and  disfigurement  of  the  mediaeval 
records  by  the  prelates  and  artists  of  the  Renaissance  .and  Ba- 
rocco  periods. 

In  other  countries  and  other  schools  there  always  were,  from 
century  to  century,  such  radical  changes  in  style  that  it  would 
require  abnormal  critical  density  to  make  in  most  cases  an  error 
of  over  half  a  century.  For  example,  during  this  millennium  of 
Roman  uniformity  France  saw  a  succession  of  styles,  —  Mero- 
vingian, Carlovingian,  Romanesque,  Gothic,  —  not  only  each 
instinct  with  individuality,  but  each  embracing  distinct  local 
and  chronological  variations.  Under  such  conditions,  to  date  a 
monument  approximately  without  the  aid  of  documents  is  easy. 
To  give  a  concrete  instance.  In  almost  every  province  of  France 
during  this  period  we  find  the  successive  use  of  several  kinds 
of  covering :  wooden  roof,  tunnel  vault,  groin  vault  or  dome. 
And  we  can  control  these  larger  factors  by  the  minor  peculiari- 
ties of  details ;  such  as  the  architectural  mouldings  so  rich  in 


PROLOGUE  9 

the  closing  centuries  of  the  Middle  Ages ;  such  as  the  capitals 
where  we  find  a  great  variety  of  design,  some  a  more  or  less 
imperfect  adaptation  of  the  antique  orders,  some  based  on 
geometric  forms,  some  on  the  imitation  of  nature  —  human, 
animal  and  vegetable. 

Compare  this  richness  with  the  uniformity  of  Eome,  where 
no  kind  of  vaulting  ever  found  entrance  (except  sporadically), 
but  where  we  are  everlastingly  confronted  by  the  same  wooden 
roofs ;  where  no  system  of  capitals  (except  sporadically)  ever 
contested  the  supremacy  of  the  antique  orders ;  where  the  classic 
Roman  system  of  ornament  continued  in  almost  unbroken  use, 
hardly  interrupted  by  the  Byzantine  centuries ;  where  the  old 
thin  brick  walls,  with  their  plain  roundheaded  openings  for 
doors  and  windows,  were  never  replaced  by  heavy  moulded 
stonework  ;  where  no  problems  in  statics  troubled  the  builders' 
minds  and  led  to  new  developments. 

Such  a  school  requires  infinite  patience  for  its  decipherment. 
This  patience  is  severely  taxed  by  the  present  condition  of  the 
churches  of  Rome.  As  long  as  it  was  Christian  Rome  that  re- 
stored its  own,  there  was  no  incongruity  between  the  new  work 
and  the  old,  but  with  the  Renaissance,  and  still  more  with  the 
Barocco  period,  the  Roman  Church  showed  as  much  destructive 
ruthlessness  for  its  own  past  as  it  did  for  ancient  pagan  ruins. 
What  it  did  not  entirely  destroy  it  aimed  radically  to  transform. 
Not  a  single  church  entirely  escaped.  It  was  merely  a  question 
of  scale  :  from  complete  destruction,  like  that  of  S.  Peter,  to 
the  less  radical  transformation  of  the  furniture  and  decoration, 
as  at  S.  Maria  Maggiore. 

We  cannot  enter  any  of  the  Roman  churches  as  we  can  so 
many  Romanesque  and  Gothic  churches  of  Northern  Europe 
and  have  the  complete  satisfaction  of  being  taken  back  through 
the  centuries,  without  a  jar  or  a  contradiction.  Mutilated  as 
they  are,  the  monuments  of  classic  Rome,  in  their  sombre  and 
ragged  nudity,  but  without  discordant  additions  of  other  ages, 
have  less  to  contend  with  in  their  appeal  to  our  reconstructive 
imagination  than  have  the  Christian  basilicas  where  Barocco 
prelates  have  delighted  to  hide  the  lines  of  classic  columns  in- 
side hideous  plaster  piers ;  to  fling  riotous  and  sprawling  cupids 


10  PROLOGUE 

and  allegorical  females  of  colossal  size  against  every,  apse  and 
chapel :  to  spread  over  heavy  coffered  ceilings  the  most  violent 
combinations  of  bright  blues,  reds  and  golds  ;  to  rip  out  the 
wealth  of  chancel  rails,  choir  screens,  pulx3its,  paschal  cande- 
labra, altar  canopies  that  obstructed  to  their  mind  the  view  of 
the  flaunting  ceremonial  of  the  age,  and  yet  delighting  to  fill  up 
the  vistas  again  with  portentous  altar  tabernacles ;  to  cover  with 
whitewash  the  old  mosaics  and  frescos ;  to  tear  down  the  an- 
cient porticos  and  plaster  against  the  front  one  of  those  mean- 
ingless bescrolled  and  bumptious  facades  that  disfigure  most  of 
the  streets  of  Rome.  An  eminent  living  prelate  and  writer  has 
tartly  said,  "  These  men  make  us  regret  the  Vandals.'' 

Yet  while  allowing  the  lover  of  the  mediaeval  Rome  that  was 
to  voice  this  lament,  it  remains  true  that  Rome  still  contains 
the  most  wonderful  existing  series  of  Christian  works  of  art 
in  unbroken  continuity,  and  that  their  history  has  never  been 
written  with  any  scientific  accuracy,  though  they  are  most  of 
them  familiar  inmates  of  the  pages  of  art  histories.  Their 
unity  to  which  I  have  referred  has  made  it  possible  to  confuse 
a  basilica  of  the  time  of  a  Liberius  (352-36G)  or  a  Sixtus  III 
(432-440)  with  one  built  eight  hundred  years  later  by  an 
Innocent  II  (1130-1143)  or  a  Honorius  III  (1216-1227). 
A  fresco  or  mosaic  of  the  tenth  or  eleventh  may  reproduce 
quite  faithfully  one  of  the  fifth  or  sixth  century. 

This  confusion  is  enhanced  by  misleading  documentary  evi- 
dence. As  most  of  the  basilicas  were  early  foundations  and 
were  often  restored,  redecorated  and  even  reconstructed,  there 
are  many  records  of  work  done  which,  owing  to  the  vagueness, 
inaccuracy  and  exaggeration  of  mediaeval  ])hraseology,  leave  us 
in  doubt  as  to  the  date  of  the  building  that  now  stands  before 
us.  The  old  chronicler's  desire  to  magnify  the  work  done  by 
a  contemporary  would  often  lead  him  to  call  a  mere  restoration 
by  the  misleading  name  of  reconstruction. 


Ill 

Problems  in  Painting  and  Sculpture.  —  All  this  applies  m^ely 
to  one  section  of  Roman  art  —  to  its  architecture.     If  one  turns 


PROLOGUE  11 

to  other  branches,  one  meets  with  questions  just  as  baffling  and 
problems  just  as  interesting,  many  of  them  raised  by  the  recent 
discoveries  which  are,  every  day,  emphasizing  the  importance 
of  the  Roman  schooh 

Critics  are  now  asking  whether  the  revival  of  painting  in 
the  thirteenth  century  did  not  really  take  place  in  Rome. 
They  are  asking  whether  Giotto  was  not  a  pupil  of  Roman 
artists,  especially  of  Pietro  Cavallini,  and  not  at  all  of  Cimabue. 
The  Vasari  bubble  of  the  Tuscan  origin  is  being  pricked !  But 
who  was  this  mysterious  Cavallini  ?  His  works  are  now  being 
identified  and  discovered,  especially  in  Rome,  Naples  and 
Assisi,  and  he  is  being  hailed  as  the  greatest  painter  before 
Giotto  and  one  of  the  foremost  religious  painters  and  decora- 
tors of  all  times,  crowning  Rome  as  the  source  of  mediaeval 
and  Renaissance  painting. 

And  again,  who  can  say  with  certainty  how  much  Arnolfo, 
celebrated  as  the  great  Florentine  architect  and  sculptor,  who 
shares  with  Niccola  Pisano  the  honor  of  resuscitating  sculp- 
ture, owed  to  Rome  and  her  artists  as  we  study  his  many 
works  in  Rome  in  which  he  shows  himself  too  completely  a 
leader  of  the  Roman  school  itself  to  be  classed  as  an  outsider  ? 

I  have  been  convinced  for  twenty  years  that  in  the  revival 
of  art  in  the  thirteenth  century  the  Roman  school  took  the 
foremost  part  in  painting  and  a  prominent  share  in  sculpture. 
Recent  discoveries  are  leading  many  foremost  critics,  such  as 
Zimmerman,  Thode,  Venturi,  Langton  Douglas  and  Strzygow- 
ski,  to  conclusions  that  involve  these  results.  But  we  are  still 
struggling  for  our  clews  in  the  obscurity  created  by  the  cruel 
Barocco  devastations !  The  disjecta  membra  of  the  old  basilica 
now  scattered  through  the  Vatican  crypt  are  a  symbol  of  the 
fate  of  most  of  the  mediaeval  sculpture.  The  absurd  copies 
made  before  their  destruction  by  unskilled  Barocco  humanists, 
such  as  the  series  at  S.  Paolo  by  Cavallini,  and  the  mutilated 
fragments  that  are  reappearing  from  beneath  the  Barocco 
whitewash,  are  a  mere  apology  for  the  extensive  series  that 
rivalled  the  Assisi  frescos  in  a  dozen  Roman  churches. 

If  the  closing  days  of  the  School  are  full  of  such  puzzles, 
what  is  one  to  say  of  its  earlier  work  in  sculpture  and  paint- 


12  PROLOGUE 

ing  ?  Only  during  the  past  half-dozen  years  has  it  been  pos- 
sible to  even  dream  of  following  the  history  of  fresco-painting 
in  Eome  during  the  earlier  Middle  Ages;  but  now,  the  discov- 
ery of  numerous  new  works  of  the  sixth  to  the  ninth  centuries 
and  the  more  careful  study  of  others  of  the  tenth,  eleventh  and 
twelfth,  have  given  an  embarrassing  quantity  of  material  which 
no  one  has  yet  attempted  to  classify.  How  much  in  all  this, 
if  any,  is  by  Byzantine  artists,  how  much  by  Italian  pupils, 
how  much  is  purely  Koman  in  style  ?  The  burning  Byzantine 
question  is  virulently  reopened ! 

Even  the  entire  system  of  carved  decoration  that  ruled  in 
Rome  and  nearly  everywhere  in  Italy  from  the  seventh  to  the 
eleventh  century  is  cause  for  bitter  controversy,  and  opposing 
critics  battle  for  its  Byzantine,  its  Lombard  or  its  Classic 
origin !  In  this  I  side  emphatically  with  Byzantium.  Every- 
where we  uncover  interesting  mare's  nests  ! 

For  all  these  reasons  this  handbook  cannot,  as  such  books 
usually  do,  give  a  summary  of  recognized  facts,  but  must  be 
itself  often  a  pioneer  and  admit  a  large  element  of  discussion 
and  hypothesis,  and,  I  may  confess,  also  a  modicum  of  parti- 
sanship. To  create  the  right  atmosphere  I  have  found  a  larger 
element  of  history  necessary  than  is  at  all  customary,  because 
my  theory  of  historic  art  (not  of  contemporary  art)  is  that  it  is 
as  integral  a  part  of  civilization  as  politics,  religion,  sociology 
or  literature.  As  I  hope  this  book  may  serve  in  the  class- 
room, I  have  also  felt  it  necessary  to  include  a  considerable 
amount  of  detailed  description  of  the  more  important  works, 
so  as  to  obviate  reference  to  other  books  for  these  fundamental 
elements.  Less  serious  students  may  pass  this  over.  I  only 
regret  that  I  could  not  make  these  descriptions  more  vivid  by 
a  greater  number  of  illustrations :  those  I  have  given  have 
been  selected  so  as  to  omit  no  single  important  type  in  any  of 
the  arts. 

Ever  since  joining,  in  1879,  at  the  age  of  nineteen,  the  Sodetd, 
dei  Cultori  di  Archeologia  Cristiana,  of  which  De  Rossi  was 
the  leading  spirit,  I  have  made  Christian  Rome  and  its  art  my 
special  study.  After  living  in  Rome  for  seventeen  years,  I 
left  in  1883,  but  have  returned  a  number  of  times,  gathering 


PROLOGUE  13 

material  and  continuing  to  explore  not  only  the  mediaeval  city 
but  the  small  towns  and  monasteries  in  every  part  of  the  Roman 
province,  many  of  them  still  gems  of  sequestered  mediaeval  life. 
I  followed,  along  the  highways  throughout  this  territory,  the 
footprints  of  Roman  art  and  artists.  Before  long  I  expect  to 
publish  a  history  of  mediaeval  art  in  Rome  on  a  large  scale. 
Of  course  in  this  limited  space  only  a  part  of  this  work  can 
appear,  but  even  in  this  handbook  I  shall  include  some  small 
part  of  the  material  gathered  outside  of  Rome,  —  I  wish  it 
could  be  more,  —  because  it  is  a  product  of  the  same  hands 
and  brains  that  worked  in  the  metropolis,  and  many  a  gap 
in  Rome  itself  is  filled  by  some  work  in  a  country  town 
where  Barocco  devastation  was  less  active. 


K 


PART   I 

HISTORICAL   SKETCH 


K 


PART   I 

HISTORICAL   SKETCH 
I.  THE  CITY  OP  CONSTANTINE  AND  HONORIUS 

Before  Constantine's  reign  (312-337)  it  had  been  impossi- 
ble for  Christianity  to  be  adequately  represented  in  works  of 
public  art.  Whatever  metamorphosis  it  had  accomplished  in  a 
certain  part  of  the  population  had  been  in  the  domain  of  the 
spirit  only.  Worship  had  been  carried  on  in  various  unosten- 
tatious ways.  At  first  it  had  been  in  the  houses  of  wealthy 
converts,  unchanged  in  their  architecture  by  this  passing  use 
for  the  new  cult.  Then,  there  had  commenced,  in  the  third 
century,  with  the  great  increase  in  the  numbers  of  converts, 
the  custom  of  building  not  only  special  chapels  in  connection 
with  houses,  but  even  churches  of  small  dimensions.  Still, 
these  chapels  and  churches  were  either  swallowed  up  in  the 
general  splendor  or  were  scattered  without  the  walls  at  the 
entrances  to  the  Catacombs,  less  conspicuous  than  the  thousands 
of  private  mausoleums  that  lined  the  public  highways.  The 
certainty  of  their  destruction  or  confiscation  whenever  a  per- 
secution was  proclaimed  helped  to  determine  the  modesty  of 
their  aspect. 

Without  the  aid  of  these  vanished  works  above  ground  the 
galleries  and  chambers  of  the  subterranean  Catacombs  have 
supplied  the  only  available  information  for  the  pre-Constan- 
tinian  age.  It  may  seem  strange  that  a  description  of  these 
Christian  Catacombs  should  not  form  the  first  chapter  of  this 
history.  But  they  really  constitute  quite  "  another  story,"  less 
illustrative  of  Eome  as  a  city  than  of  the  intimate  texture  of 
primitive  Christian  thought  and  feeling  in  a  form  rather  desul- 
c  17 


18  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

tory  than  systematic,  in  an  art  more  private  than  public,  and 
less  an  art  than  a  language. 

It  is  only  when,  after  the  year  of  liberation,  312,  official 
Christian  art  began  to  succeed  official  pagan  art  and  to  take  its 
place  by  the  side  of  official  civil  art,  that  the  new  thread  in  the 
weave  of  art  history  can  be  started  on  its  way  to  accomplish  its 
work  of  reconstruction. 

At  the  same  time,  while  the  new  art  of  Constantine  bloomed 
with  undoubted  and  sudden  originality  in  the  fields  of  archi- 
tecture and  mosaic  painting,  and  the  pent-up  thought  of  the 
fathers  of  the  Church  found  free  expression  in  new  artistic  ideas 
for  the  conversion  and  edification  of  the  people  ;  yet  there  were 
other  branches,  such  as  fresco-painting  and  carved  sarcophagi, 
which,  with  an  intense  conservatism  and  roots  sunk  deeply  in 
the  two  previous  centuries,  continued  in  close  touch,  both  of 
technique  and  of  theme,  with  what  we  may  call  the  art  of 
the  Catacombs.  In  fact  a  considerable  part  of  this  subter- 
ranean art  was  actually  produced  during  the  course  of  the 
fourth  century,  when  the  Catacombs  were  still  used  for  burial 
as  well  as  for  the  worship  of  the  relics  of  the  martyrs. 

The  fourth  century  in  Rome  was  thus  characterized :  — 

(1)  As  transitional  from  private  to  public  Christian  art ; 

(2)  As  transitional  from  pagan  to  Christian  public  art ; 

(3)  As  an  age  of  general  mutual  tolerance,  religiously  and 
socially,  officially  and  privately. 

In  a  study  of  this  and  the  following  century  it  has  been  the 
illogical  habit  of  art  historians  to  limit  themselves  to  the  ecclesi- 
astical, to  the  exclusion  of  civil  monuments.  But  the  monu- 
mental situation  is  so  completely  a  reflex  of  the  political 
and  religious  duality  of  the  age  that  the  two  phases  of  art,  — 
religious  and  civil,  —  with  even  a  sprinkling  of  the  expiring 
pagan,  must  be  studied  separately,  for  the  same  school  of  art 
produced  them  all.  This  will  be  done  after  a  preliminary  study 
of  the  exceptional  years  of  Constantine  himself. 

Constantine's  Civil  Monuments.  —  In  the  early  part  of  Con- 
stantine's  reign  the  city  was  not  denuded  of  imperial  engineers 
and  architects,  even  though  some  may  have  been  called  away 
to  Milan  by  Maxentius  to  beautify  the  new  temporary  capital. 


THE  CITY  OF  CONSTANTINE  AND  HONORIUS      19 

The  most  impressive  and  colossal  of  existing  monuments,  is 
the  so-called  basilica  of  Constantine;  and  the  Emperor  added 
another  to  the  series  of  imperial  thermae  already  erected  by 
Titus  and  Trajan,  Caracalla  and  Diocletian. 

The  spectacular  triumphal  arch  on  the  Via  Sacra,  the  Janus 
Quadrifrons  of  the  Forum  Boarium,  the  colossal  bronze  eques- 
trian statue  of  Constantine  in  the  middle  of  the  Forum  and 


Basilica  of  Constantine,  restored. 


his  seated  statue  in  the  basilica,  show  that  Rome  was  still 
the  main  centre  of  the  imperial  school  of  art,  such  as  it  was, 
even  though  the  city  had  ceased  to  have  any  political  importance. 
The  basilica  is,  with  the  Colosseum,  the  most  impressive 
ruin  in  or  near  the  Eoman  Forum.  It  had  been  begun  by 
Constantine's  rival,  Maxentius  (306-312),  on  a  plan  totally  dif- 
ferent from  all  previous  public  basilicas,  which  had  been  long 
columnar  structures  with  wooden  roof.  Here,  on  the  contrary, 
the  interior  was  on  an  enormous  scale  covered  with  a  series  of 


20 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH 


vaults  rivalled  only  by  those  of  the  largest  imperial  thermae. 
The  central  nave  has  three  high  groin  vaults  supported  on  piers 
faced  by  enormous  shaf ts,  and  to  these  corresponded,  on  a  lower 
level,  three  tunnel  vaults  at  right  angles  on  either  side,  with 
central  nave.  The  spacious  interior  was  the  largest  in  the  his- 
tory of  architecture  up  to  that  time,  and  surpasses  even  the 
largest  Gothic  cathedrals.     Its  architectural  details  were  on  so 

large  a  scale  that  their  lack  of 
finish  and  their  heavy  ornamenta- 
tion were  not  a  glaring  detriment. 
The  curves  of  the  vaults  were 
covered  with  heavy  coffering  and 
the  pavement  with  rich  marbles. 
Owing  to  its  size,  it  was  impracti- 
cable for  the  Popes  of  the  black 
century  after  the  Gothic  wars  to 
convert  it  to  any  practical  use,  and 
the  destruction  begun  by  Honorius 
I,  who  used  its  bronze  tiling  for  S. 
Peter's,  was  continued  and  assisted 
by  earthquakes.  Only  the  three 
lower  tunnel  vaults,  of  what  we 
might  term  the  rear  aisle,  remain. 

"■  Ml '  ■^-    '         Constantine's   predecessor,  Dio- 

Marble  Wall-incrustation,  Basilica    ^^^^-^^   ^^^  ^^^^  ^  f ^^    ^^^^  ^^^^^^ 
ot  Junius  Bassus.  it,  i 

completed  the  most  colossal  of  all 

imperial  baths,  one  hall  of  which  was  converted  by  Michel- 
angelo into  the  church  of  S.  Maria  degli  Angeli.  We  cannot 
say  how  far  Constantine,  in  his  own  thermae,  fell  short  of  his 
great  model,  for  its  ruins,  still  of  considerable  extent  in  the 
sixteenth  century,  afford  but  a  scant  basis  for  reconstruction. 
It  was,  at  all  events,  based  on  a  similar  scheme  of  extensive 
vaulted  construction.  This  entire  field  of  superb  structural 
architecture  I  merely  allude  to,  as  it  passes  out  of  our  field  and 
has  no  connection  with  the  future  of  architecture  in  Christian 
Kome. 

To  the  superficial  observer   the   triple   triumphal   arch   of 
Constantine,  erected  to  commemorate  his  victory  over  Maxen- 


^HliSii^iPi 


THE  CITY  OF   CONSTANTINE  AND  HONORIUS      21 

tiuS;  in  315,  appears  to  surpass  the  earlier  arch  of  Septimius 
Severus.  This  impression  vanishes  as  we  find,  on  analysis, 
that  it  lacks  the  unity  of  a  single  work  and  age ;  that  it  is 
mainly  composed  of  the  spoils  of  a  number  of  earlier  struc- 
tures; and  that  it  is  these  borrowed  plumes,  from  the  golden 
age  of  Trajan  and  the  Antonines,  that  have  given  this  first 
impression  of  artistic  value.  It  wears,  metaphorically  speak- 
ing, bloody  garments;  for  it  a  great   destruction  was  wrought 


Arch  of  Constautine. 


and  several  memorial  arches  torn  down.  The  great  attic  re- 
liefs are  from  an  arch  of  Marcus  Aurelius  or  Lucius  Verus; 
the  medallions  from  some  other  early  arch;  the  great  battle 
scenes  are  from  Trajan's  Forum.  Even  the  lines  of  the  archi- 
tectural framework,  the  main  cornice  and  the  columns  that 
support  it,  are  from  some  destroyed  arch  of  the  Antonines. 
The  artists  of  Constantine  contented  themselves  with  the 
carving  of  the  less  prominent  features  of  both  figured  and 
decorative  ornament,  and  in  both  kinds  of  work  they  showed 
themselves  below  the  standard  of  other  Constantinian  and 
even  later  work  in  Rome,  such  as  the  mausoleum  of  Constantia 


22  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

and  the  church  of  S.  Piidentiana.  Another  of  the  imperial 
works,  the  Janus  Quadrifrons,  shorn  of  its  marble  columns,  its 
niches  despoiled  of  their  statuary,  stands  now  in  its  cold 
nudity,  incapable  of  giving  us  a  very  definite  impression  of 
its  original  decorative  value.  Still,  in  its  massive  heaviness,  it 
is  unique  as  a  survivor  of  what  had  been  a  popular  and  very 
early  form  of  city  arch,  that  with  four  equal  sides  and  double 
passageway — a  form  sometimes  placed  over  the  intersection 
of  two  highways.  Some  fragments  of  a  civil  hall  or  private 
basilica,  built  in  317  by  Junius  Bassus  and  preserved  when 
the  hall  became  a  church,  show  how  during  these  earlier  years 
of  the  emperor  decorative  artists  of  great  value  remained.  Its 
marble  incrustations  formed  a  perfect  scheme  of  pictures. 

If  Constantine  was  guilty  of  looting  earlier  monuments,  like 
the  circus  of  Nero,  to  build  S.  Peter,  he  also  restored  some. 
It  is  probably  to  him  that  the  reconstruction  of  the  temple  of 
Concord  is  due.  But  toward  the  close  of  his  reign  a  more 
disastrous  phase  of  looting  was  inaugurated,  —  worse  because 
another  city  than  Rome  profited  by  the  spoils.  After  325  the 
Emperor  began  to  transport  materials  from  Kome  for  the 
decoration  of  the  public  structures  of  his  new  capital,  Con- 
stantinople, where  he  was  gathering  works  of  art  from  all  parts 
of  the  Empire.  He  despoiled  Hadrian's  villa  and  accepted 
columns  and  marbles  from  private  donors  in  Rome,  so  putting 
a  premium  on  destruction. 

Constantine's  Churches.  —  Turning  now  to  Christian  as  dis- 
tinguished from  Civil  and  Pagan  monuments,  we  find  the 
Emperor  assisting  the  Church  in  its  work  of  providing  build- 
ings for  the  increasing  mass  of  worshippers  and  of  suitably 
commemorating  the  graves  and  memories  of  martyrs  and 
apostles. 

The  Roman  Church  was  as  yet  poor ;  it  was  the  Emperor^ 
not  the  Pope,  who  built  the  first  great  basilicas.  This  fact 
found  its  record  even  in  the  lives  of  the  Popes.  Though  com- 
piled two  centuries  later,  the  life  of  Constantine's  contem- 
porary. Pope  Sylvester,  shows  evidence  of  being  based  on 
contemporary  documents  in  the  Papal  archives.  In  it  the  only 
structure  directly  attributed  to  the  Pope  is  a  parish  church 


THE   CITY  OF   CONSTANTINE  AND  HONORIUS      23 

within  the  city,  —  that  of  Equitius^  afterwards  called  SS.  Sil- 
vestro  e  Martino  ai  Monti.  Below  the  present  church,  founded 
above  that  of  Sylvester  by  Symmachus  (498-514),  there  still 
exist  considerable  remains  of  this  primitive  church  —  one  of 
the  most  historic  landmarks  of  the  new  free  Christianity.^ 

But,  aside  from  this  one  exception,  the  monuments  of  this 
first  generation  of  Christian  art  in  Eome  were  due  to  the  per- 
sonal initiative  of  Constantine  and  to  the  funds  of  the  imperial 
treasury.     The  circular  letters  which  the  Emperor  sent  to  the 


|l  I  ^Si^^^^f^S^Sp 


Constantinian  Marble  Choir  Screen  at  S.  Martino  ai  Monti  (Tit.  Equitii). 


bishops  and  imperial  officials  throughout  the  Empire,  the  texts 
of  which  are  given  by  Constantine's  contemporary  and  biogra- 
pher Eusebius,  show  his  system  of  procedure. 

Not  only  the  imperial  finances  and  the  officials  charged  with 
the  supervision  of  monuments,  but  the  state  corporations  rep- 
resenting every  branch  of  art,  were  placed  at  the  service  of  the 
Church.  To  a  certain  extent  there  must  have  been  limitations, 
for  although  in  the  time  of  Constantine  a  considerable  propor- 
tion of  the  working  classes  in  Rome  were  Christians,  one  may 
believe  that  the  fact  that  only  Christians  could  be  employed  in 
any  works  connected  with  worship  would  have  then  shut  out 
many  of  the  most  skilled  artists  and  artisans. 

In  the  Emperor's  programme  he  was  powerfully  seconded  by 
his  mother  Helena,  who  appears  to  have  had  a  more  vivid  faith 
than  her  son.  Princely  gifts  to  the  Roman  Church  were  two 
palaces  belonging  to  the  imperial  family — the  Lateran  and  the 
Sessorian. 

1  The  basilica  of  Sylvester  at  the  cemetery  of  Priscilla  on  the  Via  Salaria 
Nova,  where  the  Pope  was  buried,  may  also  be  his  work;  to  judge  from  the 
few  remaining  fragments  it  may  have  been  of  considerable  importance. 


24  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

The  Lateran.  — The  palace  of  the  Laterani  had  come  to  Con- 
stantine  through  his  wife,  Fausta.  He  gave  it  to  the  Roman 
Church,  which  gradually  established  in  it  its  central  adminis- 
tration; he  built  in  connection  with  it,  the  Cathedral  church  of 
Rome  and  of  Christendom,  the  Lateran  basilica,  called  also  the 
Constantinian  basilica,  from  its  founder,  and,  later,  the  basilica 
of  the  Saviour,  and  still  later  of  S.  John.  The  large  halls  of 
the  palace  served  for  meetings  of  the  councils,  for  the  archives 
and  libraries,  for  bureaus  of  charity  and  administration  and  for 
Papal  residence.  However  often  the  Popes  might  temporarily 
transfer  their  residence  elsewhere,  the  tradition  that  the  Lateran 
was  the  permanent  centre  of  the  Papacy  was  never  shattered 
until  the  Renaissance.  Part  of  the  ground-plan  of  the  original 
Roman  palace  has  been  recently  explored. 

The  Lateran  basilica  was  the  most  important  church  built  by 
Constantine  in  Rome,  but  its  numerous  reconstructions  have 
destroyed  all  vestiges  of  its  Constantinian  features. 

The  Sessorian.  —  The  Sessorian  palace,  on  the  other  hand, 
was  not  as  a  whole  given  to  the  Church.  It  was  the  favorite 
residence  of  the  Empress  Helena,  and  appears  to  h3,ve  remained 
imperial  property  as  late  as  the  time  of  Theodoric,  when  the 
Council  of  501  was  held  there.  The  main  hall  of  the  palace, 
however,  was  converted  by  Helena  into  a  church,  and  called 
"  Hierusalem."  Here  was  preserved  the  principal  relic  of  the 
True  Cross  brought  from  Jerusalem  after  its  discovery ;  hence 
the  church  received  in  time  the  name  "  Santa  Croce  in  Gerusa- 
lemme,''  and  became  a  sort  of  appendage  to  the  neighboring 
Lateran.  This  basilica  still  exists,  though  much  mutilated,  — 
the  most  perfect  example  of  the  adaptation  of  the  basilical  hall 
of  a  private  palace  to  the  uses  of  a  church. 

But  the  Emperor's  principal  group  of  religious  structures  was 
that  connected  with  the  tombs  of  the  apostles  and  martyrs 
outside  the  city  walls.  These  are  the  basilica  of  S.  Peter  on 
the  Vatican  Hill,  that  of  S.  Paul  on  the  Via  Ostiensis,  that  of 
S.  Lawrence  on  the  Via  Tiburtina,  that  of  S.  Agnes  on  the  Via 
Nomentana,  and  that  of  SS.  Marcellinus  and  Peter  on  the  Via 
Prgenestina.  These  were  all  cemeterial  basilicas,  and  were 
built  by  the  Emperor  on  a  larger  scale  and  with  more  susnptu- 


THE  CITY  OF  CONSTANTINE  AND  HONORIUS      25 

ous  decoration  than  was  the  case  with  most  of  the  cemeterial 
basilicas  erected  subsequently  by  the  Popes  of  this  and  the  fol- 
lowing century.  Still,  they  were  of  very  unequal  importance. 
That  of  S.  Peter  was  by  far  the  largest  and  most  artistic,  almost 
equalling  the  Lateran  basilica.  That  of  S.  Paul  was  compara- 
tively small,  and  was  superseded  by  another  of  far  greater  size 
and  magnificence  at  the  close  of  the  century.  The  even  smaller 
basilica  of  S.  Lawrence  was  so  changed  by  Pope  Pelagius  in  the 


S.  Peter  and  its  Annexes  in  the  Middle  Ages. 
Kestoration  of  Crostarosa. 


sixth  century  that  it  is  difficult  to  attribute  to  the  edifice  of 
Constantine  more  than  most  of  the  columns  of  the  smaller  and 
lower  church.  Pope  Honorius  in  the  seventh  century  recon- 
structed S.  Agnes,  and  of  SS.  Marcellinus  and  Peter  nothing 
exists. 

The  Vatican ;  S.  Peter.  —  Notwithstanding  many  restora- 
tions, the  Vatican  basilica  remained,  therefore,  until  its  de- 
struction in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  the  best 
example  of  a  Constantinian  church,  and  may  well  be  described 
here  in  its  general  features,  following  the  plan  drawn  up  in 
1590  by  Alfarano,  and  the  descriptions  and  sketches  by  writers 
and  artists  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  the  Renaissance.     When  the 


26 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH 


apse  was  demolished,  the  proof  of  its  Constantinian  age  was 
found  in  its  stamped  bricks,  and  the  mosaic  of  Constantine  pre- 
senting the  model  of  the  church  to  Christ,  which,  as  I  was  able 
to  prove,  existed  on  the  triumphal  arch  until  the  end,  must 
have  been  original. 

The  /approach  to  the  church  was  up  a  flight  of  thirty-five 
steps  through  a  proj^ylaeum  into  a  large  atrium  with  over  forty 

columns  enclosing  all  four  sides 
of  the  court.  In  the  centre  was 
a  large  fountain.  The  church 
was  entered  by  five  doors,  and 
was  divided  into  five  aisles  sup- 
ported by  eighty-eight  columns 
and  eight  pilasters.  The  col- 
umns, of  various  marbles,  and 
of  granite,  were  taken  from 
antique     monuments,    the    two 


Plan  of  S.  Peter  in  the  Middle  Ages. 


nearest  the  door  being  of  African 
marble.  The  shafts,  bases,  and 
capitals  varied  in  style,  size,  and 
period  so  radically  that  hardly 
any  two  were  exactly  alike,  and 
we  are  reminded  of  the  letter  of 
Constantine,  in  which  he  asked 
a  bishop  to  let  him  know  as  soon 
as  the  plans  for  a  certain  church 
were  completed  so  that  he  could 
order  the  columns  for  it  to  be 
collected  from  everywhere.  The  columns  and  architraves  of 
S.  Peter's  are  shown  by  their  marks  and  inscriptions  to  have 
come  from  many  quarries,  and  to  have  belonged  to  buildings 
erected  by  various  Emperors  from  Titus  to  Gallienus. 

The  columns  of  the  main  nave  supported  not  arcades  but 
architraves,  and  the  side-aisles  were  of  diminishing  widths. 
These  architraves  were  not  uniform  but  varied  in  mouldings, 
ornamentation  and  proportions.  At  the  end  of  the  nave  the 
arch  of  triumph,  decorated  with  the  mosaic  already  mentio;ied, 
o|pened  into  the  transept  which  extended  beyond  the   aisles. 


THE   CITY  OF   CONSTANTINE  AND  HONORIUS      27 

Here  stood  the  confession  and  altar,  above  the  tomb  of  S. 
Peter,  and  in  front  of  it  a  double  line  of  twelve  superb  spiral 
columns,  supporting  architraves  with  sculptures. 

In  the  apse  was  a  mosaic  of  Christ  and  the  two  princes  of 
the  apostles  Paul  and  Peter.  Constan tine's  inscription  on  the 
arch  read,  addressing  Christ :  — 

BECAUSE,    LED    BY    THEE,    THE    WORLD    TRIUMPHANT    RISES    TO 

THE    STARS, 
CONSTAXTINE,    VICTORIOUS,    BUILT    THIS    HALL    FOR    THEE. 

Not  long  after  Constantine,  changes  and  additions  took  place. 
A  baptistery  was  added  in  the  right  arm  of  the  transept ;  the 


S.  Peter  (Old  Basilica). 

atrium  was  paved,  a  mosaic  was  placed  on  the  facade  at  the 
expense  of  the  ex-prefect  Marinianus  (c.  450)  ;  and  two  palaces 
were  built  to  flank  the  atrium.  At  this  early  date  the  aisles 
were  not,  as  later,  filled  with  altars  and  chapels,  but  the  ba- 
silica was  surrounded  by  subsidiary  buildings,  especially  by 
monasteries  built  by  Leo  the  Great  and  his  successors  and  by 
sumptuous  circular  mausolea,  of  which  two  were  of  especial 
interest,  that  of  the  Anicii  Probi,  the  imperial  mausoleum  of 
the  dynasty  of  Theodosius,  afterwards  called  S.  Petronilla,  and 
its  annex,  S.  Maria  della  Febbre.  Other  buildings  were  toward 
the  front  of  the  atrium,  such  as  the  school  for  the  training 


28 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH 


THE  CITY  OF  CONSTANTINE  AND  HONORIUS      29 

of  singers.  Later  an  entire  suburb  grew  up  around  the 
basilica. 

When  the  group  was  supplemented  in  the  century  after  Con- 
stantine  and  connected  with  the  mausoleum  and  bridge  of 
Hadrian  by  an  arcaded  boulevard,  the  general  effect  must  have 
been  imposing,  even  though  the  details  of  the  interior  may 
have  been  defective. 

To  complete  this  Constantinian  series  the  imperial  mausolea 
must  not  be  forgotten,  connected  with  these  basilicas  and  their 
cemeteries,  —  especially  those  of  the  Empress  Helena  near 
SS.  Marcellinus  and  Peter,  and  of  Constantia,  or,  more  prop- 
erly, Constantina,  near  S.  Agnese. 

Like  all  such  buildings  they  were 
circular  in  plan.  Built  with  far  greater 
solidity  than  the  basilicas  and  with 
vaults  instead  of  wooden  roofs,  they 
have  suffered  less  from  fire,  restora- 
tion and  time  and  have  remained 
almost  perfect  representations  of  Con- 
stantinian   structure     and     decoration,  _ 

though  unequally  so,  for  of  the  mauso-         *  "  """ 

1  J?  TT  1  1     -M.  i?  J.1  A.     Mausoleum  of  Constantia. 

leum  01  Helena,  built  on  one  oi  the  great 

imperial  estates,  only  the  main  part  of  the  shell  remains, 
with  its  dome  of  terracotta  amphorae  on  a  high  drum  pierced 
with  large  openings. 

S.  Costanza.  —  The  mausoleum  of  Constantia  was,  either 
originally  or  shortly  after  its  construction,  used  as  the  baptis- 
tery of  the  neighboring  basilica  of  S.  Agnese.  The  closed  ves- 
tibule  has  the  same  oblong  form  with  a  hemicycle  at  each  end 
as  the  Lateran  baptistery,  a  certain  sign  of  the  special  litur- 
gical ceremonies  connected  with  baptism.  It  is  also  said  that 
traces  of  the  central  baptismal  font  have  been  found.  At  the 
same  time  the  niches  in  the  outer  wall  were  evidently  intended 
for  funerary  purposes,  and  the  porphyry  tomb  now  near  that  of 
Helena  in  the  Vatican  was  found  here  and  is  a  proof  that  the 
building  was  actually  used  as  a  mausoleum.  The  apsidal 
niches  are  in  four  groups  of  three  between  the  doors  and  the 
two  larger  apses.     The  heavy  walls  of  the  dome  are  too  wide 


30  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

to  be  supported  by  single  shafts,  so  the  twelve  arcades  rest  on 
twenty-four  coupled  shafts,  whose  capitals  are  surmounted  by 
an  architectural  member  which  is  equivalent  to  an  interrupted 
frieze  from  which  the  arches  spring.  The  whole  arrangement 
is  unique,  a  summary  of  Roman  achievement  up  to  that  time 
in  vaulted  and  domical  construction  on  a  small  scale.     The 


Interior  oi"  S.  Constautia  (S.  Costanza). 

vertical  thrust  of  the  dome  is  partly  received  by  the  vaults 
and  w^alls  of  the  tunnel-vaulted  ambulatory. 

We  must  imagine  this  mausoleum  also  as  surrounded  by  a 
circular  colonnade,  of  which  only  traces  remain,  and  as  front- 
ing on  a  portico.  All  around  it  were  minor  monuments  of  the 
large  open-air  cemetery  attached  to  S.  Agnese  —  an  example  of 
the  favorite  mode  of  burial  around  the  suburban  basilica,  dur- 
ing the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries.  It  was  after  the  Gothic 
wars  that  the  custom  changed  and  open-air  cemeteries  became 
numerous  within  the  walls,  such  as  the  one  near  S.  Eusebio. 

Endowment. —  Constantine  was  not  satisfied  with  building  and 


THE  CITY  OF  CONSTANTINE  AND  HONORIUS      31 

decorating  many  churches.  He  did  two  other  things :  (1) 
filled  their  treasuries  and  sacristies  with  artistic  and  precious 
articles  for  the  religious  services;  and  (2)  provided  for  the 
adequate  maintenance  of  the  building  and  its  personnel  by 
gifts  of  income-producing  real  estate.  We  may  conclude  that 
most  of  tlie  details  of  this  sort  given  in  the  Liber  Pontificalis 
—  with  regard  to  S.  Peter,  for  instance  —  were  drawn  from 
the  church  archives  aud  are  not  imaginary. 

This  commencement  of  church  endowment  was  the  logical 
consequence  of  the  religious  revolution.  At  the  close  of  an- 
other century  the  confiscation  of  the  immense  properties  of 
the  pagan  temples,  which  reverted  to  the  Emperors,  was  to 
give  an  almost  inexhaustible  source  of  supply  for  imperial 
gifts   to  the   principal   churches   of   Rome. 

The  City.  —  By  a  curious  coincidence  the  only  documents  that 
enumerate  the  monuments  of  the  ancient  city,  quarter  by 
quarter,  belong  to  the  very  time  of  Constantine  and  his  sons. 
This  catalogue  which,  with  the  marble  plan  of  Septimius  Sev- 
eriis,  forms  the  main  basis  for  its  early  topography,  is  drily 
pathetic,  coming  just  as  the  curtain  is  about  to  be  rung  down 
on  the  imperial  city.  In  the  recapitulation  which  its  author 
makes  at  the  close,  he  classifies  the  monuments  in  categories 
and  enumerates  two  circuses,  two  amphitheatres,  three  theatres, 
ten  public  civil  basilicas,  eleven  public  imperial  baths  or 
thermse,  thirty-six  triumphal  marble  arches,  four  hundred  and 
twenty-three  temples,  seventeen  hundred  and  ninety  palaces 
and  forty-six  thousand,  six  hundred  and  two  tenements  or 
blocks.  Not  a  single  Christian  Church  is  mentioned!  The 
earlier  edition  of  this  document,  called  the  Notitia,  was  edited 
in  about  .'330,  on  the  basis  of  an  earlier  document :  toward  the 
middle  of  the  century  a  revision  was  made  called  the  Curi- 
osum. 

In  population  the  Rome  of  Constantine  seems,  until  the 
latter  part  of  his  reign,  to  have  been  as  large  as  ever.  The 
area  of  the  Circus  Maximus  was  increased  so  as  to  seat  nearly 
three  hundred  thousand  people.  The  influence  of  the  new 
faith  did  not  seem  to  abate  one  whit  the  devotion  of  the  people 
to  the  circus,   the   amphitheatre   and  the   theatre.     All   the 


32  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

public  buildings  of  these  classes  were  kept  in  perfect  running 
order.  It  was  the  same  with  the  thermae  and  other  public 
baths,  with  the  basilicas  and  porticos.  There  was  even  one 
notable  addition  to  the  symmetry  and  beauty  of  the  city  be- 
fore the  close  of  the  century.  It  was  the  completion  of  the 
system  of  porticos  by  a  new  and  far  longer  Via  Sacra.  This 
Christian  "  Sacred  Way,"  destined  to  supersede  the  ancient  one 
through  the  Forum,  radiated  in  three  directions,  toward  the 
suburban  basilicas  of  the  princes  of  the  apostles  Peter  and 
Paul  and  the  great  martyr,  Lawrence.  To  each  of  these 
centres  of  worship  and  pilgrimage  there  extended  several  miles 
of  covered  porticos  flanking  the  road  and  giving  shelter  from 
sun  and  rain.  Focussing  toward  the  centre  of  the  city,  these 
three  lines  joined  the  older  imperial  porticos  and  were  com- 
pleted by  the  Porticus  Maximce  which  bisected  the  edge  of  the 
Campus  Martins  and  ended  at  the  Tiber  in  front  of  the  mauso- 
leum of  Hadrian.  There  were  even  subsidiary  porticos  lead- 
ing off  to  basilicas  within  the  city,  like  that  along  the  vicus 
patricius  toward  S.  Maria  Maggiore  by  way  of  S.  Pudentiana. 
Triumphal  arches  were  placed  here  and  along  the  main  Via 
Sacra  by  Valentinian  and  Honorius. 

The  churches  built  during  the  fourth  century  within  the 
city  were  not  numerous  nor  conspicuous  enough  to  affect  its 
aspect ;  in  their  exterior  effect  of  plain  brickwork  they  must 
have  seemed  inferior  to  the  average  private  dwelling.  Even 
their  interiors,  rich  as  they  were  with  color,  with  hangings 
and  furniture  and  sculpture  in  metal,  fell  in  sumptuousness 
below  the  average  of  both  public  and  private  buildings. 

And  yet  Christianity  was  affecting  art  far  more  than  this 
would  indicate,  for  this  reason,  that  most  of  the  new  work  was 
done  for  the  Church.  Imperial  legislation  before  the  close  of 
the  century  forbids  city  officials  to  put  up  new  buildings  while 
those  already  existing  are  in  need  of  repair  and  unless  funds 
are  on  hand  sufficient  for  their  completion.  The  decrease  in 
the  population  that  set  in  before  the  middle  of  the  century 
made  new  work  quite  superfluous  except  in  the  service  of  the 
new  religion. 

Successors  of  Constantine;  Rome's  Doom. — After  Constantine's 


THE  CITY  OF  CONSTANTINE  AND  HONORIUS      33 

death  in  337  there  was  a  lull  in  building  activity.  His  three 
sons  divided  the  Empire.  Constantius  had  the  East,  Constan- 
tine  and  Constans  divided  Africa  and  the  rest  of  the  West. 
The  hope  that  Rome  would  be  chosen  as  the  political  capital 
of  Constans  was  deluded.  In  fact  as  the  fourth  century  pro- 
gressed it  became  evident  that  as  a  monumental  city  Rome  was 
doomed. 

The  aristocracy  of  Rome,  as  represented  by  the  Senate,  was 
not  as  a  majority  converted  to  the  new  faith.  It  remained 
bound  to  paganism  through  self-interest  if  not  through  convic- 
tion. The  career  of  a  Roman  noble,  his  cursus  hononiin,  so 
rigidly  regulated  in  its  progress  through  offices  of  increasing 
importance,  involved  more  than  one  charge  coimected  with  the 
pagan  religion.  Consistent  Christians  could  not  rise  so  easily 
at  first  in  public  office  or  honors.  So  it  happened  that  until 
the  fifth  century  there  were  many  more  Christian  women  than 
men  in  the  upper  ranks.  In  Rome  there  was,  therefore,  great 
danger  that  worldly  considerations  would  kill  fervor  of  faith. 
In  fact  it  was  partly  in  order  to  be  free  from  these  and  other 
trammels  of  paganism  that  Constantine  founded  Constanti- 
nople and  endowed  it  with  a  Senate  and  with  all  the  privileges 
which  Rome  alone  had  hitherto  had  as  a  capital. 

The  establishment  of  a  Christian  state  could  not  be  directed 
from  Rome.  The  Emperors  turned  their  back  on  her  perma- 
nently. That  her  problem  was  too  hard  for  the  intellects  of 
Constantine's  successors  is  shown  by  the  potency  of  the  spell 
she  still  exerted  on  their  unwilling  spirits  ;  when  there  they 
were  once  more  unconscious  pagans,  a  part  of  the  tremendous 
past,  and  were  even  perhaps  galled  by  an  uncomfortable  sense 
of  humility  as  if  belonging  to  a  less  heroic  age.  Their  lares 
and  penates  were  in  another  atmosphere. 

Understanding  by  the  very  failure  of  the  persecution  of 
Christianity  by  the  earlier  Roman  Emperors,  how  dangerous 
coercion  could  become,  the  Christian  Emperors  therefore  handed 
over  the  stronghold  of  paganism  to  the  Church  and  the  Papacy, 
so  that  its  moral  forces  could  leaven  the  lump  and  mould  the 
masses.  Meanwhile  conciliation  was  the  watchword  of  Im- 
perial and  Papal  policy  alike.     It  was  not  till  391  that  Theo- 


34 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH 


dosius  issued  and  partially  enforced  a  law  forbidding  the 
celebration  of  the  public  rites  of  pagan  worship. 

It  was  only  in  416,  apparently  as  a  consequence  of  the  last 
pagan  reaction  of  409,  that  the  law  formally  excluded  profess- 
ing pagans  from  public  office,  both  civil  and  military  —  a  law 
which  remained  largely  a  dead  letter.  This  date  of  416,  while 
a  fatal  one  for  the  future  of  the  temples  of  Rome,  was  not 
immediately  so.  They  always  remained  public  monuments, 
in  the  care  of  the  prefect  of  the  city,  still  nearly  always  a 
pagan.  It  was  only  a  few  years  before  that  Honorius  had 
finally  confiscated  the  possessions  of   the  temples. 

It  will  be  sufficient  to  mention  a  few  of  the  civil  buildings 


The  Basilica  ^Emilia,  in  the  Fifth  Century  after  Honorius's  Restoration. 


restored  or  built  at  this  time.  The  Grain  Exchange  {Statio 
Annonce)  was  rebuilt  on  the  old  site  in  the  Forum  Boarium, 
where  the  church  of  Santa  Maria  in  Cosmedin  now  stands, 
and  in  which  some  of  its  columns  and  even  the  beautiful  stucco 
decoration  in  open-work  of  its  arcades  were  utilized.  Not  as 
a  religious  structure,  but  as  the  public  treasure,  the  temple  of 
Saturn  in  the  Forum  was  rebuilt  either  in  the  fourth  century 
or  after  the  fire  of  Alaric.  The  present  columns  are  no  earlier 
and  the  inscription  says :  Senatus  Popidusque  Romanus  in- 
cendio  consumptum  restituit.  After  this  fire,  also,  the  basilica 
Emilia  was  rebuilt  and  decorated,  and  apparently  also  the 
basilica  Julia.  So  were  the  Curia  and  Secretarium,  where  the 
Senate  met.  /C 


THE  CITY  OF  CONSTANTINE  AND  HONORIUS      35 

The  year  367  itself  was  made  memorable  by  the  recon- 
struction of  the  Porticus  Deorum  Consentium  on  the  west 
edge  of  the  Forum,  by  the  famous  pagan  prefect  Praetextatus. 
It  was  the  last  building  erected  in  Home  for  pagan  cult ! 

Just  before  this  the  construction  of  the  great  Valentinian 
bridge  and  triumphal  arch  was  commenced,  which  for  years 
afforded  a  subject  for  correspondence  between  the  Emperors 
and  the  famous  Symmachus,  who  was  prefect  of  the  city  and 
consequently  superintendent  of  buildings,  during  the  latter 
stages  of  their  construction.  In  these  letters  he  airs  his 
troubles  with  the  architects  in  charge  or  appointed  to  exam- 
ine into  the  constructive  defects  and  the  cost  of  the  bridge. 
We  learn  something  in  this  way  about  those  court  architects 
and  engineers,  —  such  as  Cyriades,  —  men  of  senatorial  rank 
and  wealth,  who  had  charge  of  building  and  financing  such 
public  structures.  The  restoration  of  another  bridge,  the 
Cestian,  was  being  carried  on  at  about  the  same  time. 

Finally,  under  Honorius  (395-423),  came  the  restoration 
of  the  walls  and  gates  of  Aurelian,  planned  as  a  defence 
against  the  invasion  of  Alaric.  Some  of  the  new  gates 
rise  to  the  dignity  of  works  of  art.  In  the  Forum  statues 
were  erected  to  Stilicho  and  Honorius  to  celebrate  the 
triumph  over  Rhadagaisus ;  and  others  in  the  Forum  of 
Trajan. 

The  last  triumphal  arches  in  Kome  belong  to  this  time. 
That  to  Gratian,  Valentinian  and  Theodosius  (382)  framed  the 
north  end  of  the  Porticus  Maximce,  near  Hadrian's  bridge,  and 
was  not  destroyed  until  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century. 
It  was  less  triumphal  than  purely  a  work  of  civic  decoration. 
Not  so  the  arch  of  Arcadius,  Honorius  and  Theodosius  that  was 
built  in  405  to  celebrate  Stilicho's  salvation  of  the  Empire 
from  the  mixed  hordes  of  Rhadagaisus.  It  stood  not  far  from 
the  other  arch  and  no  trace  of  it  remains. 

We  can  judge  of  the  artistic  quality  of  these  arches  only 
from  the  fragments  of  a  third  arch,  that  of  Valentinian  and 
Valens,  built  at  the  entrance  to  their  bridge,  a  few  years 
earlier,  of  which  a  few  fragments  were  recovered  from  the 
Tiber  and  are  now  in  the  museum  of  the  baths  of  Diocletian, 


36  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

including  parts  of  some  of  the  triumphal  bronze  figures  that 
crowned  it. 

Exodus  from  Rome.  —  The  decreasing  population  hardly  re- 
quired so  many  places  of  amusement;  so,  while  the  theatre 
of  Pompey  was  diligently  restored  by  Honorius,  and  the 
Colosseum  in  442  and  467^72,  on  the  other  hand,  the  prefect, 
Symmachus,  in  the  time  of  Gratian  used  stones  from  the 
theatre  of  Marcellus  in  his  reconstruction  of  one  of  the 
bridges. 

Stripped  bare  of  its  architects,  with  its  artisan  class  im- 
poverished and  oppressed  by  imperial  officials,  Kome  was  but 
poorly  equipped  either  to  preserve  her  old  art  or  to  inaugu- 
rate a  new  one.  And  yet  this  is  what  it  proceeded  to  accom- 
plish, with  a  zeal  that  was  pathetic  if  we  remember  its  reduced 
circumstances,  for  the  Romans  remained  devoted  lovers  of 
their  monuments  even  until  the  Gothic  wars,  as  Procopius 
then  assures  us. 

The  exodus  affected  art  radically  because  it  struck  at  the 
roots  of  the  two  classes  that  had  contributed  the  most  to  its 
development :  the  aristocracy  and  the  corporations  of  artisans. 
The  first  blow  to  the  homogeneity  of  the  aristocracy  had  been 
dealt  when,  in  the  third  century,  Rome  ceased  to  be  the 
political  capital  of  the  Empire.  Already  during  the  reign  of 
Diocletian  and  his  colleagues  many  senatorial  magnates  had 
broken  up  their  great  establishments  in  and  about  Rome. 
But  until  the  foundation  of  Constantinople  the  absenteeism  of 
the  aristocracy  had  been  largely  temporary.  After  325  a  new 
Roman  aristocracy  was  founded  at  Constantinople,  drawn 
largely  from  that  of  old  Rome.  The  Senate  of  the  new  capital 
had  the  advantage  of  being  at  the  real  centre  of  the  Empire. 
The  ambitious  all  left  the  old  stranded  ship  of  State.  They 
carried  away  with  them  from  Rome  a  large  retinue  of  all 
classes,  and  with  their  departure  a  large  source  of  Roman 
wealth  ran  dry. 

The  departure  was  felt  even  more  disastrously  in  the  coun- 
try district  around  Rome  than  in  the  city  itself.  Many  large 
estates  were  totally  abandoned.  There  were  none  wealthy 
enough  to  take  up  their  burden.     At  the  close   of   this   cen- 


THE  CITY  OF  CONSTANTINE  AND  HONORIUS      37 

tury,  a  document  of  the  year  395  indicates  that  one  of  the 
results  had  been  that  live  hundred  square  miles  of  arable 
land  around  Rome  had  become  a  morass,  and  that  malaria,  the 
new  scourge  of  the  Campagna,  had  made  frightful  progress. 

Enslavement  of  the  Art  Corporations.  —  The  withdrawal  of  so 
many  of  the  wealthy  affected  the  prosperity  of  the  artists 
and  artisans  of  Kome  during  the  fourth  century.  The  Greek 
artists  who  had  contributed  the  element  of  a3sthetic  beauty 
in  previous  centuries  had  mostly  left  Rome  in  the  third 
century,  following  imperial  patronage.  The  cream  of  the 
remaining  artists  and  artisans  were  called  to  Constantinople 
during  the  decade  after  325  to  build  and  decorate  the  new 
city.  The  bulk  of  those  that  remained  in  Rome  were  the 
poorer  practitioners. 

It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  under  Diocletian  and  his  suc- 
cessors the  imperial  authority  over  the  corporations  of  arti- 
sans was  absolute,  and  that  only  by  order  of  the  Emperor 
could  any  of  them  pass  from  one  city  to  another,  so  that  it 
was  perfectly  possible  for  Constantine  to  draft  as  many  as 
he  chose  of  the  Roman  artisans  to  form  a  nucleus  for  the 
new  corporations  in  Constantinople.  The  Theodosian  code 
shows  how  seriously  Constantine  and  his  successors  sought 
to  increase  the  ranks  and  ameliorate  the  condition  of  the 
artisans  and  of  the  better  class  of  artists,  —  painters  and 
architects,  —  but  it  was  in  the  provinces  and  in  Constantinople, 
not  in  Rome,  that  these  efforts  were  put  forth. 

Their  legislation  and  that  of  Diocletian  show  only  too 
clearly  how  ground  down  and  bound  down  these  men  had 
become.  No  man  could  follow  an  art  unless  he  belonged  to 
his  union.  Once  a  member  of  it,  he  could  not  leave  it  till  he 
died.  Nor  could  he  leave  the  city  where  he  had  matriculated. 
His  son  was  bound  to  follow  the  art  of  his  father,  who  was 
also  his  teacher.  Each  corporation  was  a  distinct  wheel  in 
the  imperial  organism,  a  State  within  a  State,  but  subject 
absolutely  to  the  control  of  the  imperial  administration.  This 
went  to  the  extent  of  forcing  each  corporation  to  give  to  the 
State  as  much  free  labor  and  free  material  as  was  required  for 
the  construction,  decoration  and  repair  of  all  public  buildings. 


38  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

No  wonder  that,  enervated  by  the  forced  hereditary  nature 
of  their  occupation,  without  freedom  of  choice,  without  ade- 
quate remuneration,  they  fell  more  and  more  into  the  dis- 
astrous habit  of  scamping  the  quality  and  solidity  of  their 
work  on  public  buildings.  Neither  can  we  blame  them  if, 
delivered  from  the  eagle-eyed  supervision  of  the  skilled 
architects  and  superintendents,  long  since  departed,  they 
plundered  the  old  buildings  to  build  the  new  and  abandoned 
the  old  traditions  of  the  masters  whose  great  masses  of  con- 
crete masonry  seemed  built  for  eternity. 

Corruption  in  Rome.  —  The  picture  of  Roman  life  drawn  by 
the  pagan  historian,  Ammianus  Marcellinus,  just  after  the 
middle  of  the  fourth  century,  and  during  the  next  half  cen- 
tury by  men  like  Salvianus  and  S.  Jerome,  show  a  further 
cause  for  artistic  decay,  for  this  life  was  incurably  corrupt 
and  devitalized.  The  Church  appeared  to  make  but  little 
impression  on  its  lubricity  and  self-indulgence.  In  fact,  nearly 
all  the  men  of  culture  and  refinement,  including  the  aristoc- 
racy, were  still  pagans. 

It  was  to  turn  this  current  that  we  find  the  leaders  of  the 
Church  organizing  religious  instruction  by  means  of  art,  set- 
ting on  the  walls  of  the  basilicas  the  landmarks  of  faith,  with 
a  feverish  zeal  that  shows  how  crucial  a  moment  in  the  his- 
tory of  Christianity  they  felt  it  to  be.  The  origin  of  mo- 
nasticism  was  due  to  the  bitterness  of  the  delusion  of  the 
really  religious,  who  saw  that,  since  fashion  and  authority 
had  stamped  Christianity  with  their  approval,  the  Church  as 
a  unit  had  become  infected  with  most  of  the  soft  vices  of 
paganism.  But  the  men  with  firmest  fibre  put  up  a  stiff  fight, 
helped  by  a  cohort  of  the  most  wonderful  women,  many  of 
whom  were  Jerome's  friends. 

The  biography  of  one  of  these  women,  Melania  the  younger, 
written  by  her  secretary,  has  recently  been  published.  She 
and  her  husband  spent  some  twenty-seven  years  in  realizing 
and  distributing  her  immense  possessions  in  the  various  coun- 
tries, which  are  said  to  have  yielded  her  an  income  equivalent 
to  ^175,000,000  of  modern  money.  She  spent  the  capital  in 
building  and  endowing  churches,  monasteries,  nunneries  and 


THE  CITY  OF   CONSTANTINE   AND  HONORIUS      39 

hospitals  and  in  providing  thein  with  sacred  and  useful  vest- 
ments, ornaments  and  utensils,  as  well  as  in  various  forms  of 
charity.  Unless  greatly  exaggerated,  the  money  thus  invested 
far  surpassed  the  combined  fortunes  of  the  Kockefellers,  Car- 
negie and  the  Astors,  and  the  larger  part  was  employed  in 
the  creation  of  monuments  of  Christian  art  in  Rome  and  else- 
where.    Others  did  the  same  on  a  smaller  scale. 

Church  Organization.  —  In  selecting  sites  for  such  monuments 
the  Church  was  prudent.  The  political  shrewdness  shown  by 
the  Emperors  was  emulated  by  the  Popes.  As  late  as  the  fifth 
century  the  Church  hesitated  to  wound  pagan  susceptibilities 
by  planting  the  standard  of  the  faith  in  the  inner  stronghold 
of  the  historic  past,  in  the  precincts  of  the  Forums  and  the 
Palatine  Hill  bristling  with  the  temples  of  the  gods.  The 
churches  were  set  in  inconspicuous  and  distant  quarters,  with- 
out the  walls,  on  the  outskirts,  across  the  Tiber. 

The  establishment  of  Christian  festivals  on  the  same  dates 
as  pagan  ones,  and  Avith  analogous  ceremonies,  made  it  easy  for 
the  populace  to  pass  over  to  the  new  faith  without  the  loss  of 
the  pomp  and  circumstance  and  play  that  were  so  necessary 
to  these  materialists,  however  reformed. 

For  purposes  of  administration  the  city  was  then  divided 
into  fourteen  civil  districts  or  regions,  ^'  regiones."  The  Chris- 
tian church  seems  not  to  have  followed  this  civil  division,  but 
for  its  own  organization  to  have  adopted  seven  divisions,  each 
governed  by  a  deacon.  Within  these  divisions  were  the  parish 
churches,  of  which  the  number  finally  adopted  at  this  time 
was  twenty-five.  These  churches  were  called  tituli,  and  have 
continued,  with  a  few  additions,  to  modern  times.  They  later 
gave  their  titles  to  the  most  important  group  of  the  college  of 
cardinals.  These  tituli  were  the  earliest  churches  within  the 
walls  of  Rome. 

Parish  Churches.  —  These  parish  churches  during  the  fifth 
century  seem  to  have  been  the  following :  — 

Reg.  I    (1)    S.  Xysti  (=  T.  Crescentian^e  ?) 

Reg.  II  (2)  Bizantior  Pammachii  (=  mod.  SS.  Giovanni 
and  Paolo);  (3)  ^milianae  (=  SS.  Quattro  Coronati  ?) 

Reg.  Ill  (4)  dementis  (=  S.  Clemente)  ;  (5)    SS.  Marcellini 


40  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

et  Petri ;  (6)  Apostolorum  ( =  Eudoxiae  =  S.  Pietro  in  Vin- 
coli)  ;  (7)  Equitii  (=  Silvestri  =  S.  Martino  ai  Monti). 

Reg.  V  (8)  Praxedis  (=  S.  Prassede)  ;  (9)  Pudentis  (=  S. 
Pudenziana)  ;  (10)  Eusebii  (=  S.  Eusebio). 

Reg.  VI  (11)  VestintB  (=  S.  Yitale) ;  (12)  Gai  (=  S.  Su- 
sanna) ;  (13)  Cyriaci. 

Reg.  VIII  (14)  Marcelli  (=  S.  Marcello). 

Reg.  IX  (15)  Lucinae  (=  S.  Lorenzo  in  Lucina) ;  (16)  Da- 
rn asi  (=  S.  Lorenzo  in  Damaso)  ;  (17)  Marci  (=  in  Pallacinis 
=  S.  Marco) 

Reg.  XI     (18)  Anastasise  (=  S.  Anastasia). 

Reg.  XII  (19)  Fasciol£e(=  SS.  Nereo  ed  Achilleo) ;  (20)Bal- 
binae  (=  S.  Balbina). 

^Qg.  XIII  (21)  Sabin^e  (=  S.  Sabina) ;  (22)  Prisese  (=  S. 
Prisca). 

Reg.  XIV  (23)  Julii  (=  Callixtus  =  S.  Maria  in  Trastevere)  ; 
(24)  Caecilise  (=S.  Cecilia)  ;  (25)  Chrysogoni  (=  S.  Crisogono). 

To  each  of  these  parish  churches  was  attached  a  Catacomb 
outside  the  walls  for  the  burial  of  its  church-members,  and  above 
or  in  the  bowels  of  thi^  Catacomb  were  one  or  more  basilicas 
dedicated  to  the  principal  martyrs  buried  there.  The  religious 
services  in  these  suburban  basilicas  were  at  first  in  charge  of 
the  clergy  of  its  parish  church  in  the  city,  and  only  later  was 
it  found  necessary  to  establish  monasteries  at  the  main  sub- 
urban  churches  to  relieve  the  parish  priests  of  this  duty. 

It  was  an  old  Roman  law  that  forbade  burial  within  the  city 
wall,  and,  as  in  everything  else,  Christianity  never  abruptly 
broke  with  Roman  custom,  so  that  throughout  the  fourth  and  tif  th 
centuries  burials  continued  outside  the  walls.  The  only  known 
exception  is  that  of  SS.  John  and  Paul,  martyred  under  Julian 
the  Apostate  in  their  own  house  on  the  Coelian,  whose  bodies 
were  left  in  the  house  itself  and  the  church  built  there  a  half 
century  later.  A  number  of  the  tituli  were  built  on  the  site  of 
the  house  of  some  wealthy  convert  which  had  been  used  for 
worship  in  the  era  of  persecution.  S.  Cecilia  was  the  house  of 
the  Csecilii;  S.  Lorenzo  in  Lucina  was  the  house  of  Lucina. 
Or  else  the  church  was  called  from  the  person  who  gave  the 
land ;  thus  the  church  built  by  Pope  Sylvester  was  called  the 


THE  CITY  OF  CONSTANTINE  AND  HONORIUS      41 

titulus  Equitii,  from  a  priest  who  gave  the  site,  and  those  of 
Vestina  under  Innocent  I,  of  Crescentiana  under  Anastasius 
and  of  Sabina  under  Celestine  were  named  for  the  same  reason. 
The  city  churches  originally,  then,  were  not  called  by  the 
names  of  saints  and  martyrs  ;  this  was  a  later  transformation. 
The  ecclesiastical  organization  of  the  Christian  population 
very   closely   affected    the   distribution    and    number   of   the 


Basilica  of  SS.  Nereo  e  Achilleo  in  the  Catacombs  of  Domitilla. 


churches.  We  can  study  it  at  the  close  of  the  fifth  century, 
when  its  formative  period  was  over,  and  documentary  evidence 
is  more  exact.  It  was  at  these  twenty-five  parish  churches  in 
which  services  were  regularly  held  that  the  poor  were  fed  and 
clothed.  Only  later,  after  the  Gothic  wars  (end  VI  c),  was 
the  special  class  of  diaconal  churches  organized  for  the  distri- 
bution of  charity,  which  the  diminished  civic  and  ecclesiastical 
wealth  henceforth  sadly  reduced. 


42  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

There  were,  of  course,  many  other  churches  in  the  city  be- 
sides these  parish  churches,  and  an  even  larger  number  strung 
along  all  the  main  roads  leading  from  the  city.  In  fact,  these 
suburban  basilicas,  erected  at  the  tombs  of  the  apostles  and 
martyrs,  were  ordinarily  of  greater  magnificence  than  the  par- 
ish churches ;  such  were  the  basilicas  of  S.  Peter,  S.  Paul, 
S.  Lorenzo,  S.  Agnese  and  others.  To  neither  class  belonged 
such  superb  monuments  as  the  Lateran,  the  Cathedral  of 
Christendom,  and  S.  Maria  Maggiore,  the  greatest  church  of 
the  Virgin. 

Viewing  the  city  in  its  monuments  of  all  kinds,  pagan. 
Christian  and  civil,  it  is  certain  that  at  any  time  before  the 
sacks  of  Alaric  (410)  and  Genseric  (455)  we  may  think  of 
Rome  as  a  great  pleasure-seeking  centre,  surrounded  by  a  won- 
derful garden  of  immense  extent,  not,  as  now,  interrupted  by 
a  malarial  Campagna,  but  extending  far  away  to  the  hills  and 
the  sea  in  a  bewildering  labyrinth  of  beautiful  villas,  of 
Christian  sanctuaries  and  rural  shrines,  filled  with  works  of 
art,  still  cared  for  by  a  well-organized  multitude  of  slaves  and 
dependants,  and  enjoyed  by  a  careless  horde  of  masters  or  a 
tolerant  class  of  ecclesiastics,  quite  unconscious  of  the  rude 
awakening  and  the  coming  drop  of  the  curtain  upon  all  this 
gorgeousness. 

Art  under  the  Popes  after  Constantine. —  To  study  the  details  of 
the  Christian  art  of  the  fourth  century,  we  must  return  on  our 
footsteps  and  follow  the  lives  of  the  Popes  after  Constantine, 
chronicling  the  monuments  under  each  one  of  them. 

There  was  no  surcease  of  activity  after  the  death  of  his 
contemporary.  Pope  Sylvester.  Even  the  brief  pontificate  of 
about  a  year  of  his  immediate  successor,  Marc,  saw  the  con- 
struction of  two  basilicas:  S.  Balbina,  a  small  cemeterial 
church  near  the  Via  Ardeatina,  where  this  Pope  was  buried, 
and  a  larger  church  within  the  city,  called,  after  him,  the  ba- 
silica of  Marc  as  well  as  basilicam  in  Pallacinis,  which  became 
one  of  the  twenty-five  titular  churches.^ 

In  connection  with  S.  Balbina  was  one  of  the  earliest  of  those 

1  Hie  fecit  duas  basilicas  unam  via  Ardeatina  ubi  requiescit  et  aliaj6i  in 
urbe  Roma  iuxta  Pallacinis. 


THE   CITY  OF  CONSTANTINE  AND  HONORIUS      43 

cemeteries  for  burial  sub  dio  (above  ground),  which  were  used 
throughout  the  fourth  century,  besides  the  traditional  burials  in 
the  subterranean  galleries  of  the  Catacombs,  together  with  the 
others  at  S.  Agnese,  S.  Peter,  etc. 

Julius  and  Basilica  of  S.  Valentinus.  —  The  longer  pontificate 
of  Julius  (337-352)  was  artistically  most  active.  Even  the 
text  of  the  Liber  Pontificalis  notes  this  fact,  as  it  enumerates 
his  principal  structures.^  He  favored  the  extramural  region 
of  the  Catacombs  even  more  than  the  city  itself.  His  greatest 
work  seems  to  have  been  the  basilica  of  Valentinus,  the  main 
centre  of  worship  and  pilgrimage  on  the  Via  Flaminia,  two 
miles  beyond  the  city  gate,  from  which  it  got  its  name  Porta  S. 
Valentini.  The  keen  policy  of  the  church,  in  transmuting 
pagan  into  Christian  anniversaries,  was  illustrated  in  this  ba- 
silica. For  the  old  procession  along  the  Flaminian  Way  on 
April  25,  called  the  Eobigalia,  by  which  all  the  people  sought 
to  propitiate  the  elements  and  secure  good  crops,  was  continued 
on  that  day,  and  the  basilica  of  S.  Valentinus  was  made  its 
bourne.  This  church  was  apparently  worthy  of  taking  its 
place  beside  the  now  better-known  suburban  basilicas.  Its  ruins 
were  excavated  in  1888.  The  atrium,  facing  the  Roman  road, 
was  immense,  to  receive  the  great  crowd  of  processionists  and 
pilgrims,  but  has  not  yet  been  excavated.  The  church  itself, 
some  forty  m.  long,  had  three  aisles,  the  central  one  as  much 
as  twelve  m.  wide,  with  Ionic  columns  of  gray  granite. 
In  one  peculiarity  the  practice  here  was  unique.  In  all  other 
suburban  basilicas,  erected  at  the  tombs  of  the  principal  mar- 
tyrs, everything  was  sacrificed  in  order  to  leave  the  remains  of 
the  martyr  untouched  and  in  situ.  The  disinclination  to  change 
was  absolute.  In  order  to  set  the  altar  in  its  right  relation  to 
the  tomb  of  the  martyr,  several  basilicas  had  to  be  sunk  so  deep 
into  the  ground  as  to  become  almost  subterranean,  as  was  the 
case  at  S.  Agnese,  S.  Lorenzo,  S.  Petronilla  and  S.  Alessandro.^ 

1  Hie  multas  fabricas  fecit :  basilicam  in  Via  Portuense  miliario  III,  basili- 
cam  in  Via  Flaminia,  mil.  II,  quae  appelatur  Valentini,  basilicam  Juliam  quae 
est  regione  VII  iuxta  Forum  divi  Traiani,  basilicam  transtiberim,  regione 
XIIII,  iuxta  Callistum,  basilicam  in  Via  Aurelia,  mil.  Ill,  ad  Callistum. 

2  Sometimes,  even,  the  basilica  was  entirely  subterranean,  like  that  of 
S.  Ippolitd. 


44  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

But  in  the  case  of  the  Catacomb  of  S.  Valentino  the  hill  made 
such  a  scheme  impossible,  and  the  basilica  was  backed  against 
the  hill,  between  it  and  the  road ;  and  the  body  of  the  saint 
was  actually  transferred  from  the  Catacomb  to  the  church. 
Around  the  new  tomb  an  ambulacrum  or  corridor  was  con- 
structed, communicating  with  the  side  aisles,  but  below  the  level 
of  the  church,  in  imitation  of  the  galleries  of  the  Catacombs,  — 
probably  the  first  example  of  a  custom  that  became  current 
many  centuries  later,  at  S.  Prassede,  for  example,  when  the 
violation  of  the  sacred  remains  in  the  Catacombs  by  Lombards 
and  Saracens  forced  the  Popes  of  the  eighth  and  ninth  centuries 
to  remove  the  bodies  of  the  martyrs  to  the  churches  within  the 
walls.  The  arrangement  had  been  copied  even  earlier,  at  S. 
Pancrazio,  on  the  Via  Aurelia,  in  the  time  of  Pope  Honorius 
(625-638). 

Of  the  other  basilicas  built  by  Julius  nothing  remains  of  his 
time,  though  two  are  still  famous  —  the  urban  basilica  of  the 
Apostles  (=  bas.  lulia)  and  that  of  S.  Maria  in  Trastevere 
(=  bas.  Transtiberira,  etc.),  which  have  undergone  many  trans- 
formations. Of  the  other  two  suburban  basilicas,  that  on  the 
Via  Portuensis  seems  to  be  the  basilica  of  Felix,  of  which  no 
trace  has  yet  been  found,  while  that  on  the  Via  Aurelia  con- 
nected with  the  Catacomb  of  Callixtus  was  selected  by  Pope 
Julius  as  his  burial  place. 

Liberius  and  S.  Maria  Maggiore.  —  The  days  of  Pope  Liberius 
(352-366)  were  rather  dark  for  Rome  and  Orthodox3^  The 
Emperor  Constantius  had  violently  constituted  himself  the 
apostle  of  Arianisra.  The  withdrawal  of  the  financial  help 
of  the  imperial  Treasury  combined  with  the  exile  of  Liberius 
himself  to  reduce  artistic  activity  in  Rome,  especially  in  the 
ecclesiastical  field.  The  Pope's  life  merely  tells  us  that  he 
made  a  basilica  that  was  called  by  his  name  next  to  the  Macel- 
lum  Livia^.^  This  basilica,  rebuilt  or  restored  by  Sixtus  III 
in  the  following  century,  is  the  famous  church  of  S.  Maria 
Maggiore.  It  is  a  matter  of  some  doubt  how  much  of  the 
church  structure  and  its  mosaic  decoration  belong  to  the  time 
of  Liberius.  It  has  been  most  improbably  suggested  that  the 
i  Fecit  basilicam  nomiue  suo  iuxta  macellum  Libiae. 


THE  CITY  OF  CONSTANTINE  AND  HONORIUS      45 

main  walls  and  windows  are  earlier,  and  belong  to  a  hall  of  the 
second  century,  a  basilica  Sicinini,  which  formed  part  of  a 
large  private  palace.  The  theory  that  attributes  to  the  time 
of  Liberius  the  original  structure  and  the  mosaic  pictures  of 
the  nave,  with  their  Old  Testament  histories,  seems  the  more 
probable.^ 

Damasus  and  the  Revival.  —  The  eighteen  years  of  Pope 
Damasus  (366-384)  were  not  only  remarkable  for  an  increasing 
intensity  in  religious  art  and  cult,  but  for  the  renewed  interest 
taken  by  the  Emperors  themselves  in  the  monumental  welfare 
of  the  city.  The  immediate  successors  of  Constantine, — Con- 
stantius,  Constans,  Julian,  —  far  from  adding  new  buildings, 
hardly  provided  for  necessary  repairs,  and  it  was  only  after 
Gratian  had  become  sole  ruler  (378)  that  the  imperial  ex- 
chequer was  again  opened  for  the  benefit  of  the  orthodox 
Church  in  Rome. 

The  latest  historian  of  the  Papacy  regards  Damasus  as  the 
greatest  Pope  of  the  fourth  century ;  and  this  because  he  was 
no  opportunist,  but  a  man  with  clear  and  far-reaching  aims  in 
Church  policy  ;  a  successful  opponent  of  heresy ;  a  promoter  of 
unity  and  of  the  supremacy  of  Rome ;  a  standard-bearer  of  the 
Church's  independence  of  imperial  interference.  But  there  is 
a  phase  of  this  Pope's  career  that  is  of  vivid  interest  for  the 
internal  history  of  Rome  as  a  city,  if  we  bear  in  mind  the  fact 
that  it  seemed  rapidly  sinking  into  such  a  slough  of  spiritual 
decrepitude  as  to  call  forth  cries  of  warning  from  the  principal 
leaders  of  the  Church.  Like  his  great  contemporaries,  Augustine 
and  Jerome,  he  was  keenly  sensitive  to  the  growing  worldliness 
of  the  Christian  community  of  Rome  and  the  contaminating  in- 
fluence both  of  the  superior  culture  of  pagan  society  and  of  the 
very  apathy  due  to  Christian  success.  He  seems  to  have  felt 
that,  besides  the  weapons  of  theological  controversy,  of  monas- 
tic example,  of  moral  exhortation,  there  was  another  of  great 
power  —  that  of  example  of  the  past. 

1  Meanwhile  the  anti-pope  Felix  (355-358),  during  his  period  of  possession, 
had  built  a  basilica  called  after  him  basilica  Felicis,  on  the  Via  Aurelia.  It 
was  a  structure  of  considerable  age  and  magnificence,  restored  by  Hadrian  I, 
but  of  which  even  the  site  is  now  unknown. 


46  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

To  steep  his  flock  in  the  blood  of  the  martyrs,  Damasus  de- 
voted himself  to  the  work  of  seeking  out  tlieir  tombs  in  the 
various  Catacombs,  of  establishing  tlieir  centres  of  pilgrimage 
and  worship,  setting  up  at  each  tomb  superb  metrical  memorial 
inscriptions,  with  the  history  and  praises  of  the  dead.  All  the 
Catacombs  seem  to  have  been  carefully  searched  and  their  most 
sacred  centres  thus  fixed  and  commemorated.  For  several  cen- 
turies they  served  as  the  finger-post  to  pilgrims  who  have  left 
us  copies  of  some  forty  of  these  poetic  inscriptions,  copies  that 
have  enabled  modern  explorers  to  identify  many  a  tomb  through 
the  discovery  of  a  small  fragment  of  one  of  them.  We  even 
know  the  name  of  the  secretary  of  Damasus,  Furius  Dionysius 
Filocalus,  to  whom  the  peculiar  beauty  of  the  Damasian  inscrip- 
tions is  due.  Damasus  thus  constituted  himself,  in  a  way,  the 
historian  of  the  martyrs,  drawing  his  material  largely  from  the 
archives  of  the  Koman  Church,  of  which  he  was  librarian  before 
being  Pope.  But  for  him  the  modern  world  would  know  far 
less  of  early  Christian  Rome. 

In  fact,  the  basilica  in  Kome,  which  was  called  after  him 
S.  Lorenzo  in  Damaso,^  was  a  building  of  peculiar  interest, 
flanked  on  either  side  by  porticos  in  which  were  lodged  the 
archives  and  libraries  of  the  Roman  Church,  and  where  they 
seem  to  have  been  kept  until  they  were  transferred,  perhaps 
in  the  following  century,  to  the  palace  of  the  Lateran.  Noth- 
ing remains  above  ground  of  this  unique  building,  but  excava- 
tions in  the  Cancelleria  Palace  have  made  an  interesting  recon- 
struction of  its  arrangement  possible.  As  for  his  basilica  on 
the  Via  Ardeatina,  where  he  was  buried,  with  his  mother  and 
sister,  near  the  Catacombs  of  Domitilla,  it  has  completely  dis- 
appeared. 

The  basilica  of  S.  Sebastiano,  which  Damasus  built  in  con- 
nection with  the  famous  Platonia,  where  the  bodies  of  Peter 
and  Paul  had  rested  for  a  time  in  the  era  of  persecution,  has 

1  The  life  of  Damasus  thus  describes  his  artistic  activity :  "  Hie  fecit  ba- 
silicas duas:  una  beato  Laurentio  iuxta  theatrum  et  alia  Via  Ardeatina  ubi 
requiescit ;  et  in  catacumbas  ubi  iacuerunt  coi'pora  SS.  Apostolorum  Petri  et 
Pauli  .  .  .  platoniam  .  .  .  versibus  exornavit.  Hie  multa  corpora  sanctorum 
requisivit  et  invenit,  quod  et  versibus  declaravit.  Hie  constituit  tituliya  in 
urbe  Roma  basilicam  quam  ipse  construxit."  '»' 


THE  CITY  OF   CONSTANTINE  AND  HONORIUS      47 

for  many  centuries  preserved  but  slight  traces  of  its  Damasian 
form.  To  Daniasiis  other  sources  attribute  the  completion  of 
the  basilica  of  Rufina  and  Secunda  on  the  Via  Cornelia,  begun 
by  Pope  Julius ;  the  building  in  the  Catacomb  of  Generosa  of 
the  basilica  of  SS.  Simplicius,  Faustinus  and  Beatrix,  of  the 
basilica  of  SS.  Petronilla,  Xereus  and  Achilleus  in  the  cemetery 
of  Domitilla. 

Perhaps  to  his  pontificate  belongs  also  the  primitive  basilica 
of  S.  Clemente.     The  fate  of  S.  Clemente  has  been  curious. 


■  lie  Ages,  before  the  Fire  of  182... 

The  primitive  church,  redecorated  early  in  the  sixth  century, 
subsisted  until  the  fire  of  Guiscard  in  1084,  and  when  it  was 
rebuilt,  some  thirty  years  later,  its  ruined  decorations  were 
used  in  constructing  and  decorating  the  new  basilica.  The 
old  church  was  left  as  the  crypt  of  the  new,  and  so 
we  can  see  that,  as  was  so  often  the  case,  the  early 
Christian  Church  Avas  considerably  larger  than  the  mediaeval. 
I  will  also  mention  here  the  house  of  the  martyrs  John  and 
Paul,  on  the  Ccelian;  its  unique  frescos  will  be  described 
elsewhere. 

Siricius  and  S.  Paul's.  —  A  curious  injustice  was  done  to  Pope 
Siricius  (384-399)  in  the  official  annals.     Not  a  single  monu- 


48 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH 


ment  is  credited  to  his  pontificate.  The  new  basilica  of  S. 
Paul  was,  however,  built  at  this  time  and  dedicated  by  him. 
His  name  is  still  to  be  seen  on  a  column  saved  from  the  fire  of 
1823,  Siricius  episcopus  tola  mente  devotus,  while  on  the 
base  the  date  of  Nov.  18,  390,  is  given  as  that  of  the  conse- 
cration of  the  church  by  the  Pope.  In  the  imperial  letter 
addressed  in  386  to  the  prefect  of  Rome,  Sallust,  ordering  the 
construction  of  the  church,  the  Emperors,  while  placing  the 


Ruins  of  S.  Paul,  after  the  Fire  of  1823. 


architect  (probably  Cyriades)  at  the  orders  of  the  prefect, 
according  to  immemorial  custom,  advised  the  prefect  to 
consult  the  Pope  in  everything.  The  new  basilica  was  faced 
in  the  opposite  direction  from  the  Constantinian  building,  and 
was  so  much  larger  that  its  transept  alone  was  larger  than  the 
entire  old  church. 

To  Siricius  should  also  be  given  the  credit  of  completing 
some  of  the  buildings  commenced  by  Damasus,  for  instance, 
the  basilica  of  S.  Petronilla.  He  doubtless  also  encouraged  the 
wealthy  proconsul  and  senator,  Pammachius,  the  devout  friend 


THE  CITY  OF  CONSTANTINE  AND  HONORIUS      49 


h 


Plan  of  S.  Paul. 


of  S.  Jerome,  to  build  in  398  his  famous  hospital  and  basilica 

at  Porto,  and  to  erect  a  parish  church  over  the  house  of  the 

martyrs  John  and  Paul  on  the  Coelian. 
The    excavations    on  the    site    of    the 

hospital  at  Porto  have  disclosed  the  plan 

and  arrangements  of  this  only  building  of 

its  kind.     It  centres  around  a  quadripor- 

tico  or  atrium  and  a  basilica  exactly  like 

the  contemporary  churches,  and  it  seems 

certain  that  this  building  was  for  religious 

and  not  civil  purposes.      The  rooms  and 

halls  for  the  sick  and  poor  were  grouped 

around  it.     The  only  peculiarity  about  the 

basilica  was  that  its  aisles  were  separated 

not  by  columns,  but  by  piers  ;    but  as  this 

peculiarity  also  appears  at  S.  Sinforosa  on 

the  Via  Tiburtina  and  S.  Petronilla,  which 

are    certainly    early    churches,   it    is    no 

argument   against    this   building   at    Porto   being   a  church. 
His  most  valuable  remaining  artistic  record  is  the  church 

of  S.  Pudentiana  and  its  mosaic.  This  church  is  connected 
with  the  family  of  Pudens  and  with 
some  of  the  earliest  Christian  tradi- 
tions of  Rome.  Its  peculiar  wide 
apse  seems  to  indicate  a  pre-Con- 
stantinian  hall  church.  It  became 
as  early  as  the  fourth  century  one  of 
the  parish  churches  with  three  aisles. 
Formerly  it  had  mosaics  and  inscrip- 
tions of  this  time  that  have  perished, 
and  among  these  was  one  which  read : 
Salvo  Siricio  episcopo  ecdesice  smtctw  et 
Ilicio  Leopardo  et  Maximo  pi'esbb.  The 
three  priests  here  mentioned  had 
charge  of  the  construction  or  dec- 
oration  of    the  church,  and    two   of 

them   receive    the   credit   in   another   lost   inscription  which 

gives  the  dates  387-398  for  the  work :  — 


t?^- 


IJ 


1 
11 


Hospital    and    Basilica  of 
Pammachius  at  Porto. 


50  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

FVND.    A.    LEOPARDO.    ET.    ILICIO   ... 

valent(iniano)  avg  ET  (387-390) 

PERFECTA    HONORIO    AVGVSTO    IIII    ET 
EVTYCIANO    COS    (398) 

Another  suburban  Constantinian  basilica,  that  of  S.  Lorenzo, 
—  was  restored  by  Leopardus,  this  time  at  his  own  expense 
and  perhaps  because  the  church,  being  sunk  so  deeply  in  the 
bowels  of  the  Catacomb,  was  flooded  with  water. 

The  cooperation  of  these  same  priests  of  the  ecdesia  Ptiden- 
tiana  with  the  civil  authorities,  and  especially  with  the  pre- 
fect, is  a  most  interesting  instance  of  what  we  may  conclude 
to  have  been  quite  a  common  occurrence.  The  Prefect  Mes- 
sala  embellished  the  long  street  on  which  the  church  stood, 
the  Vicus  Patrichis,  with  a  colonnade,  doubtless  to  connect 
it  with  the  general  network  of  colonnades  throughout  the 
city.  But  it  was  not  done  entirely  at  the  expense  either  of 
the  Emperor's  or  the  city's  treasury.  A  certain  section,  ap- 
parently on  either  side  of  S.  Pudentiana,  and  beginning  at  the 
oratory  of  S.  Hippolytus,  was  done  by  the  priest  Ilicius  at 
his  own  expense.  He  recorded  this  in  an  inscription:  Omnia 
qnce  videntur  /  a  meynoria  sancti  martyris  Yppoliti  usque  hue  / 
surgere  tecta  Ilicius  /  jwesb.  sumptu x>Toprio  feeit. 

These  two  j^riests,  —  Leopardus  and  Ilicius,  —  must  have 
been  extremely  wealthy  members  of  the  clergy,  for  we  shall 
find  Leopardus  engaged  in  extensive  building  operations  at 
his  own  expense  under  the  successors  of  Siricius,  and  they 
may  also  be  regarded  as  superintending  architects  with 
technical  knowledge. 

Anastasius.  —  It  is  impossible  to  identify  even  the  site  of  the 
one  basilica  —  the  titulus  Crescentianae^  —  attributed  to  the 
brief  pontificate  of  Anastasius  (399-401),  who  was  buried  on 
the  Via  Portuensis,  not  far  from  the  great  basilica  of  Abdon 
and  Sennen,  built  at  about  this  time,  if  not  earlier,  over  the 
cemetery  of  Pontianus. 

1  Fecit  .  .  .  basilicam  quae  dicitur  crescentiana,  in  regione  II,  via  Mamur- 
tini.  xsl 


THE  CITY  OF   CONSTANTINE  AND  HONORIUS      51 

Innocent.  —  The  sixteen  years  of  Pope  Innocent  (401-417) 
were  full  of  stress  and  pathos,  of  artistic  production  and  de- 
struction. They  saw  the  reconstruction  of  the  walls  and  gates 
of  Rome,  to  protect  her  against  the  expected  invasions,  and  the 
erection  of  the  last  triumphal  imperial  monuments.  They  saw 
the  flight  of  a  large  part  of  the  population,  both  rich  and  poor, 
and  the  terrible  blow  of  the  capture  of  Rome  in  410,  which 
meant  for  all  nations  throughout  the  empire,  East  and  West,  the 
shattering  of  her  inviolability,  of  the  ideal  of  the  Roma  Dea. 
They  witnessed  the  bitter  controversy  between  pagans  and 
Christians  as  to  the  responsibility  for  the  catastrophe,  and  they 
also  saw  the  courageous  attempts  to  rebuild  the  ruined  build- 
ings, bring  back  the  exiles  and  restore  public  confidence. 


II.     ROME    FROM    ALARIC    TO    THEODORIC    THE 

GOTH 

If  all  the  deterioration  and  decay  thus  far  described  hap- 
pened as  early  as  the  fourth  century,  when  Rome  was  still 
prosperous  and  happy,  what  was  to  happen  when  the  flood  of 
barbarian  invasion  broke  all  barriers  in  the  fifth  century  and 
Rome  was  sacked  three  times  ? 

For  some  time  before  Alaric  actually  entered  Rome  in  410 
fear  had  driven  away  a  large  part  of  the  population.  Sicily, 
Africa,  Constantinople,  Sardinia,  Dalmatia,  Gaul  and  many 
other  parts  of  the  Empire  received  thousands  of  fugitives. 
They  were  of  all  classes,  but  we  hear  principally  of  the  two 
that  particularly  interest  the  history  of  art  —  the  patricians 
and  the  artisans. 

When  the  scourge  had  passed,  special  legislation  was  found 
necessary  to  force  the  artisans  of  the  corporations  to  return. 
They  must  have  emigrated  en  masse.  We  can  easily  imagine 
that  the  hunt  throughout  the  provinces  for  these  unwilling 
fugitives  from  Rome,  who  mostly  hated  the  yoke  of  their 
occupation,  must  have  been  largely  futile.  The  majority  of 
the  aristocracy  also  never  returned,  but  helped  to  make  the 
Constantinople  of  Honorius  several  times  as  large  as  that  of 
Constantine  and  to  fill  it  with  monuments  that  far  surpassed 
those  that  had  been  built  in  Rome  since  the  days  of  Diocletian. 

Now  indeed  the  ruin  of  the  great  estates  around  Rome  was 
almost  consummated ;  the  backbone  of  public  art  in  Rome 
finally  broken.  It  is  true  that  the  efforts  of  the  imperial 
police  and  the  influx  of  refugees,  mostly  poor,  from  other 
parts  of  Italy,  especially  from  the  country  districts  that  were 
more  exposed  to  the  ravages  of  barbarian  hordes,  again  raised 
the  number  of  the  inhabitants  of  Rome  to  such  an  extent  that 
in  417  the  prefect  of  the  city  asked  for  an  increase  in  the 

52 


ROME  FROM   ALARIC   TO   THEODORIC  53 

amount  of  the  imperial  dole  or  largesse  to  the  poor.  But  this 
was  rather  a  source  of  weakness  than  of  revival,  a  further  step 
in  the  pauperization  and  degradation  of  the  city,  consummated 
by  the  sack  of  Genseric  in  455. 

And  it  was  not  only  Constantinople  and  other  cities  outside 
of  Italy  that  acted  as  lodestars  for  aristocrats,  artists  and  arti- 
sans. Eavenna,  which  rivalled  and  finally  succeeded  Milan 
as  the  centre  of  imperial  power  in  Italy,  was  growing  into  a 
monumental  city,  the  link  between  East  and  West.  This 
growth,  which  began  in  the  last  decade  of  the  fourth  century, 
continued  uninterrupted.  Undoubtedly  many  corporation  arti- 
sans who  fled  there  from  Rome  in  410  never  returned,  and 
joined  the  local  organizations,  which  were  so  largely  Hellenic. 
Hence  sprang  up  almost  at  once  a  fruitful  composite  art,  an 
art  specifically  Christian.  It  has  been  noticed  that  with  the 
year  410  there  seems  to  have  been  an  absolute  break  in  the 
production  of  sculpture  in  Rome,  particularly  in  the  branch  of 
sarcophagi  with  reliefs,  of  which  the  Roman  school  was  so 
prolific  in  superb  examples  throughout  the  fourth  century. 
Not  a  single  example  in  Rome  can  be  dated  after  410.  It 
would  seem  as  if  the  whole  Roman  corporation  of  stone-carvers 
had  left  and  never  returned.  Did  many  of  them  go  to  South- 
ern Gaul,  that  last  and  most  brilliant  refuge  of  Roman  culture, 
where,  especially  at  Aries,  there  was  at  this  time  a  wealth  of 
such  sarcophagi  ?  Did  they  go  to  Spain,  to  Milan,  to  Trier, 
where  such  sarcophagi  are  found  ?  At  all  events  it  seems  as 
if  some  of  them  went  to  Rav^enna  and  bent  their  art  to  suit 
the  spirit  of  the  place,  for  suddenly,  after  complete  sculptural 
silence,  the  Ravenna  of  the  years  immediately  after  Alaric 
blooms  with  a  school  of  sculptured  sarcophagi  that  continues 
to  develop  uninterruptedly  for  two  centuries  as  the  logical 
successor  of  the  Roman  school,  though  transformed  by  the 
special  artistic  spirit  that  was  so  potent  in  Ravenna  from  the 
beginning. 

But  was  there  no  reflex  action,  very  soon,  of  Ravenna  upon 
Rome  ?  When  the  Empress  Galla  Placidia  and  her  son  Valen- 
tinian,  children  of  Byzantium,  who  turned  their  capital  and 
residence,  Ravenna,  into  a  great  centre  of  Christian  art,  began 


54  HISTORICAL   SKETCH 

to  devote  large  sums  to  the  beautifying  of  Rome,  they  must 
have  been  forced  to  supply  the  better  class  o:^  artists  as  well 
as  the  funds.  That  the  imperial  court  at  Ravenna  had  under 
its  control  a  considerable  body  of  artists  is  evident.  Agnellus, 
the  chronicler  of  Ravenna,  says,  for  example,  that  Galla  Pla- 
cidia  placed  thirteen  builders  at  the  disposal  of  the  Princess 
Sigelgaita  for  the  construction  of  a  church.  Honorius  had  a 
court  architect,  Lauricius,  whom  he  sent  to  Ravenna  to  super- 
intend the  building  of  S.  Lorenzo  in  Caesarea. 

Between  420  and  450  we  meet  in  Rome  with  a  new  art,  in 
monuments  of  the  greatest  interest ;  foremost  of  which  are  the 
wooden  doors  of  S.  Sabina  and  the  mosaics  of  the  triumphal  arch 
of  S.  Maria  Maggiore.  We  can  hardly  explain  this  art  on  the 
basis  of  the  simple  Catacoinb  frescos  or  the  reliefs  of  the 
sarcophagi.  It  shows  the  mark  of  Ravenna  on  Rome,  which 
preceded  and  prepared  the  mark  of  Constantinople.  The 
winged  angels ;  the  white-robed  apostles,  prophets  and  saints, 
marked  with  the  sign  of  the  Lamb ;  the  abode  of  tiie  blessed 
as  a  city,  not  a  garden ;  the  emphasis  laid  on  the  King- 
Christ  instead  of  the  Christ  as  miracle-worker  and  teacher  : 
these  are  some  of  the  elements  that  seem  to  have  been  intro- 
duced or  fostered  by  the  artists  of  Ravenna.  We  see  the 
final  act  of  this  influence  in  the  mosaic  of  SS.  Cosma  and 
Damiano  and  the  frescos  of  the  cemetery  of  Commodilla. 

Reviewing  the  various  elements  of  the  situation  up  to  this 
time,  the  impression  we  gain  is  that  there  was  no  interruption 
in  the  monumental  life  of  the  city  until  the  close  of  the  reign  of 
Honorius ;  that  even  after  the  sack  and  fire  of  410  the  work 
of  reconstruction  was  resumed  along  the  old  lines  as  far  as  the 
limited  financial  and  artistic  means  allowed.  Ancient  Rome 
was  not  yet  completely  fossilized.  Its  corporations  still  held 
to  the  old  methods  and  orders  and  ornaments.  The  city  pre- 
fects still  had  charge  of  public  monuments,  with  the  growing 
assistance  of  leading  ecclesiastics  such  as  Leopardus.  For 
instance.  Pope  Innocent  placed  in  charge  of  the  ubiquitous 
Leopardus  and  his  colleague  Paulinus  the  basilica  of  S. 
Agnese,  which  had  evidently  suffered  severely  from  Alaric's 
hordes,  being  outside   the   city.     They  were   to   roof  it^^and 


ROME  FROM   ALARIC   TO   THEODORIC  55 

decorate  it  (gubernari  et  tegi  et  ornari)  as  well  as  administer  it. 
As  the  same  Leopardus  was  also  put  in  charge  of  the  con- 
struction of  the  new  parish  church  of  Vestina,  it  is  natural 
that  this  basilica  should  use  the  cemetery  of  S.  Agnese  for  the 
burial  of  its  members. 

In  fact,  there  is  an  interesting  passage  in  the  Liber  Pontiji- 
calis,  showing  how  churches  were  then  sometimes  built,  relat- 
ing to  this  parish  church  called  from  its  founder  basilica  or 
titulus  Vestinoe.  The  Pope's  life  says  that  "he  dedicated  the 
basilica  of  SS.  Gervasius  and  Protasius,  built  at  the  expense  of 
an  illustrious  woman  named  Yestina,  under  the  direction  of 
the  priests  Ursicinus  and  Leopardus  and  the  deacon  Livianus." 
By  a  clause  in  her  wdll  this  woman  ordered  that  this  basilica 
should  be  built  from  the  proceeds  of  the  sale  of  her  ornaments 
and  pearls,  etc.  It  also  appears  that  she  specified  that  these 
two  priests  should  have  charge  of  the  work.  The  Pope  gave 
rich  ornaments  to  the  church,  which  corresponds  to  the  present 
church  of  S.  Vitale. 

Boniface  and  S.  Felicitas.  —  The  next  two  pontificates,  of 
Zozimus  (417—418)  and  Boniface  (418-422),  were  too  short 
and  agitated  to  have  left  monumental  records  of  interest. 
The  papal  authority  and  prosperity  were  still  temporarily  un- 
dermined by  the  capture  of  Rome  by  Alaric,  and  hardly  able 
to  withstand  the  assaults  of  the  Pelagian  and  Nestorian 
heresies. 

We  may  connect  with  Boniface  a  work  of  art  not  only  in- 
teresting in  itself,  but  as  an  artistic  landmark  —  the  chapel  of 
S.  Felicitas  with  its  frescos  near  the  baths  of  Trajan.  Boni- 
face, when  opposed  by  the  antipope  Eulalius,  had  received  an 
imperial  order  to  leave  Rome  and  had  sought  refuge  in  the 
buildings  above  the  cemetery  of  Felicitas  on  the  Via  Salaria. 
He  attributed  to  her  protection  his  triumphant  return  to  Rome, 
and  built  and  decorated  an  oratory  to  her  at  the  Catacomb,^ 
where  he  directed  that  he  should  be  buried.  There  still 
exists  in  Rome  an  oratory  of  this  saint,  thought  to  have  been 
built  in  her   house   and   place   of  captivity,  decorated  with 

1  Hie  fecit  oratorium  in  cymeterio  S.  Felicitatis,  ioxta  corpus  eius  et 
ornavit  sepulchrum  S.  martyris  Felicitatis  et  Sancti  Silvani. 


56 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH 


frescos  like  those  at  the  Catacomb,  representing  Felicitas  and 
her   seven   sons,  all  martyred  as  in  heaven,  crowned  by  the 


S.  Felicitas  and  her  Children,  Martyrs. 

Fresco  in  her  chapel. 

hand  of  Christ.     This  painting  is  a  last  echo  of  the   purely 
Latin  style  of  Catacomb  fresco,  before  the  advent  of  the  first 


ROME  FROM  ALARIC   TO   THEODORIC 


57 


breatli  of  foreign  influence,  whether  Hellenic  or  Oriental,  that 
was  to  add  spiritual  and  poetic  elements  to  the  art  of  Kome 
even  before  transforming  it  into  its  own  image.  The  art  of 
Boniface  was  still  simply  Koman ;  that  of  Sixtus  III  was 
impregnated  with  a  new  spirit. 

Celestine  and  Galla  Placidia.  —  Shortly  after  Celestine  (422- 
432)  became  Pope,  the  Emperor  Honorius  died  (423),  and  the 
Empire  was  ridded  of  a  worse  than  incapable  incumbrance, 
of  a  futile  and  chicken-hearted  fool  to  whom  more  than  to  any 


Incrusted  Marble  Decoration  of  Nave  of  S.  Sabina. 


other  man  the  downfall  of  the  Western  Empire  was  due.  His 
much-tried  sister  Galla  Placidia  became  Empress  of  the  West 
as  guardian  of  her  young  son  Valentinian  III.  AVhatever  her 
capacit}^  as  a  ruler,  she  was  a  great  patron  of  art.  Established 
at  Ravenna  she  helped  to  Byzaiitinize  its  art  with  artists 
from  Constantinople.  A  comparison  of  the  earlier  virile  and 
realistic  mosaics  of  the  baptistery  of  the  cathedral  of  Ravenna 
with  the  more  Hellenic  and  poetic  mosaics  of  the  mausoleum 
of  Placidia  illustrates  the  change  wrought  in  little  more  than 
a  decade.  That  Placidia  had  a  large  part  in  the  activity 
among  all  branches   of   religious  art  that  set  in  at  Rome 


5S 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH 


is  proved  by  the  famous  inscription  of  the  mosaic  on  the 
triumphal  arch  of  S.  Paul's,  stating  that  it  had  been  com- 
menced by  Theodosius,  finished  by  Honorius,  and  that  under 
Pope  Leo  it  was  restored  and  decorated  by  Placidia.  Then 
again,  the  construction  of  the  larger  basilica  of  S.  Lorenzo, 
"basilica  maior,"  under  Sixtus,  is  attributed  by  the  Libei- 
Pontijicalis  to  Yalentinian;  but  as  he  was  then  a  mere  youth  of 
fifteen  or  twenty,  he  was  certainly  only  his  mother's  puppet 
in  these  works. 

Once  more,  then,  imperial  gifts  were  poured  into  the  coffers 
of  the  church  at  Rome,  and  the  days  of  Constantine  seemed 


Interior  of  S.  Sabina. 
(Early  fifth  century.) 


renewed.  The  treasuries  of  the  churches  were  again  filled 
with  superb  works  of  the  goldsmith's  art.  Though  the  politi- 
cal capital  of  the  West  continued  to  be  Ravenna,  the  imperial 
family  —  Placidia,  Valentinian  and  then  his  wife  Eudoxia  — 
lived  for  a  large  part  of  the  time  in  Rome.  The  connection 
between  the  two  cities  became  extremely  intimate. 

In  the  life  of  Celestine  we  read  one  of  the  few  distinct 


ROME  FROM  ALARIC   TO    THEODORIC  59 

records  of  the  damage  done  to  Roman  monuments  by  the  sack 
of  410.  He  restored  and  enriched  the  basilica  Julia,  now 
S.  Maria  in  Trastevere  post  ignem  geticum,  ''after  the  Gothic 
fire."  The  important  series  of  paintings  or  mosaics  which  he 
placed  on  its  walls  are  cited  by  Pope  Hadrian  more  than  three 
centuries  and  a  half  later  in  his  letter  to  Charlemagne. 

Completely  a  monument  of  this  age  is  the  basilica  of  S. 
Sabina,  commenced  under  Celestine  and  finished  under  Sixtus. 
The  Liber  Poiitificalis  refers  it  entirely  to  the  reign  of  Sixtus  : 
^^  Et  huius  temporihus  fecit  Petrus  episcopus  basilicam  in  urbe 
Roma  sanctcE  Savince  ubi  et  fontem  construxitJ'  But  from  the 
dedicator}'^  inscription  it  was  founded  under  his  predecessor, 
and  its  columns  are  supposed  to  have  been  taken  from  the 
near-by  temple  of  Juno  Regina  ruined  by  Alaric.  Its  deco- 
ration in  mosaic  and  ojnis  sectile  of  rich  marbles,  its  unique 
carved  doors  and  the  excellence  of  its  design,  are  proofs  of  the 
persistence  of  a  high  quality  of  workmanship. 

Sixtus.  —  The  pontificate  of  Sixtus  (432-440)  is  monumen- 
tally famous  for  the  basilica  of  S.  Maria  Maggiore  which  the 
L.  P.  attributes  to  him :  hie  fecit  basilicam  S.  MaricR  qitce  ab 
antiquis  Liberii  cognominabatur,  iuxta  macellam  Libiae ;  though 
we  suspect  that  he  merely  restored  it  and  decorated  it  with 
some  of  its  mosaics.  More  certainly  his  work  was  a  basilica 
which  he  built  to  S.  Lawrence  next  to  that  erected  by  Con- 
stantine  and  rebuilt  by  Leopardus  over  the  martyr's  tomb. 
The  L.  P.  says  :  fecit  basilicam  sancto  Laurent io  quod  Valen- 
tinus  Augustus  concessit.  Evidently  the  Emperor  supplied  the 
funds.  The  apse  of  this  basilica  backed  against  that  of  the 
earlier  sanctuary  and  it  was  called  ma lo?-,  the  larger,  to  distin- 
guish it  from  the  earlier  one,  which  was  called  ad  corpus,  i.e. 
built  over  the  martyr's  grave  itself.  He  also  enlarged  the 
Lateran  baptistery,  placing  there  the  eight  porphyry  columns 
still  remaining :  constituit  columnas  in  baptisterium  basilicm 
ConstantiniancB,  quas  a  tempore  Constantini  Augusti  fuerunt 
congregatas  ex  metallo  purphyretico  numero  VIII,  quas  erexit 
cum  epistolis  suis  et  versibus  exornavit. 

At  S.  Sebastiano  he  built  a  monastery,  one  of  the  earliest  if 
not  the  earliest  in  Rome,  the  forerunner  of  the  many  that  were 


60 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH 


soon  to  be  established  next  to  all  the  suburban  basilicas  in 
order  to  insure  the  continuous  religious  services  which  could 
not  possibly  be  supplied  by  the  parish  clergy  of  the  city  church 
with  which  each  basilica  outside  the  walls  was  connected. 

This  Pope  was  industrious  in  continuing  to  repair  the  damage 
done  by  Alaric,  not  only  in  restoring  churches,  but  in  replacing 
the  sacred  vessels  and  sculptures  in  metal  that  had  been  de- 


I'ieixed  Marble  Windows  of  tin 


stroyed.  More  such  precious  objects  are  enumerated  as  his 
gifts  than  are  attributed  to  any  Pope  since  Sylvester ;  in  this 
he  was  helped  by  imperial  munificence.  The  confession  and 
ciborium  of  S.  Lorenzo  ad  corpus  are  described  in  detail,  in- 
cluding a  silver  statue  of  the  martyr,  as  well  as  numerous 
vessels.  The  Constantinian  ciborium  at  the  Lateran  basilica, 
destroyed  by  Alaric,  was  replaced  by  the  Emperor  Valentinian  : 
fecit  autem  Valentinianus  Augustus  ex  rogatu  Xysti  Episcopi 
fastidium    argenteum   in   basilica  Constantiniana,  quod  a  bar- 


ROME  FROM  ALARIC   TO   THEO DORIC 


(31 


haris  suhlatum  fuerat.  It  was  of  silver,  weighed  two  thousand 
pounds  and  was  decorated  with  figures  of  Christ  and  the 
apostles. 

More  plainly  than  any  previous  Pope  did  Sixtus  III  wield 
art  and  inscriptions  in  defence  of  dogma.  He  dedicated  his 
mosaics  at  S.  Maria  Maggiore  to  the  people :  Sixtus  Episcopus 


Interior  of  S.  Pietro  in  Vincoli. 
(Fifth  century,  from  antique  materials,  and  Barocco.) 

plehi  dei;  and  selected  the  themes  of  his  mosaics  so  as  to  illus- 
trate the  dogma  of  the  divine  motherhood  of  the  Virgin,  just 
proclaimed  by  the  Council  of  Ephesus.  His  great  inscription 
at  the  Lateran  baptistery  is  so  worded  as  officially  to  proclaim 
the  orthodox  doctrine  of  original  sin  against  the  dangerous 
heresy  of  Pelagianism,  then  current. 

Not  mentioned  in  the  Papal  Chronicles  is  another  church — 
that  of  S.  Pietro  in  Vincoli  —  whose  construction  was  due,  accord- 
ing to  tradition,  to  the  munificence  of  another  imperial  lady,  Eu- 
doxia,  daughter  of  Theodosius  II  and  wife  of  Valentinian,  one 


62  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

of  those  tragic  female  figures  of  the  last  days  of  the  struggle 
with  the  barbarians,  so  full  of  epic  contrasts.  Years  before  she 
was  carried  off  to  Africa  as  Genserio's  prisoner,  after  the  sack 
of  Rome  in  455,  she  had  built  this  church  in  the  time  of  Six- 
tus  III,  and  it  was  later  called,  after  her,  basilica  Eudoxiana. 
It  contained  the  famous  relic  of  the  chains  of  S.  Peter,  and  so 
its  final  name  became  S.  Peter  ad  Vincula.  Though  often 
restored,  it  retains  its  original  plan  and  columns,  and  is  not 
only  one  of  the  most  important  remaining  churches  of  the 
pre-Gothic  age,  but  is  unique  in  Rome  in  having  columns  of 
the  Doric  order,  whose  effect  is  almost  obliterated  by  the 
barbarous  Barocco  superstructure. 

Leo.  — In  Leo  the  Great  (440-461)  the  Church  found  its 
greatest  leader.  His  times  were  big  with  both  glory  and  dis- 
aster :  the  glory  of  the  deliverance  from  Attila  and  his  Huns 
through  Leo's  personal  genius  in  452 ;  the  disaster  of  the  sack 
of  Rome  by  Genseric  and  his  Vandals  in  455.  Leo's  lament 
that,  after  the  city  had  been  saved  from  Attila,  the  citizens 
showed  their  joy  by  flocking  not  to  the  churches,  but  to  the 
games  of  the  circus,  is  a  fit  counterpart  to  the  absolute  lack  of 
resistance  to  the  Vandal  raid  in  455.  Genseric  carried  off  or 
destroyed  not  only  the  bulk  of  works  of  both  pagan  and  Chris- 
tian art  in  bronze  and  the  precious  metals,  but  a  large  number  of 
illustrious  captives.  Rome  was  depleted  of  most  of  its  remain- 
ing wealthy  families.  Their  great  estates  in  various  parts  of 
Italy  had  been  mostly  destroyed.  The  theory  of  Rome's  in- 
violability, already  shattered  by  Alaric,  was  destroyed.  The 
Roman  Empire  had  been  still  represented  at  the  beginning  of 
Leo's  reign  by  powerful  individualities  like  the  Empress  Galla 
Placidia.  The  murder  of  ^tius  in  455  removed  from  the  po- 
litical scene  the  last  heroic  figure ;  the  murder  of  Valentinian, 
shortly  after,  removed  the  last  male  representative  of  the  dy- 
nasty of  the  great  Theodosius.     Then  came  Genseric. 

Artistic  Atrophy.  —  Civic  art,  even  now,  was  not  quite  dead, 
though  atrophied  by  the  decay  and  flight  of  the  art  corporations. 
Statues  in  bronze  and  marble  were  still  erected,  especially  in 
the  Forum  of  Trajan.  Maximus,  before  he  became  Emperor  in 
455,  had  been  honored  by  a  bronze  statue  in  this  Forum  ;  so 


ROME  FROM  ALARIC    TO   THEO DORIC 


63 


was  the  famous  Gallic  writer,  Sidonius  ApoUinaris,  in  456,  by 
vote  of  the  Senate. 

Majorian,  himself,  took  vigorous  steps  to  check  the  decay  of 
the  city's  monuments,  and  issued  a  decree  which  was  embodied 
in  Justinian's  code  and  is  a  real  landmark.     He  says  :  — 

"  We,  the  rulers  of  the  State,  with  a  view  to  restoring  the 
beauty  of  our  venerable  city,  desire  to  put  an  end  to  the  abuses 
Avhich  have  already  long  excited  our  indignation.  It  is  well 
known  that  in  several  instances  public  buildings,  in  which  all 
the  ornament  of  the  city  consisted,  have  been  destroyed  with  the 
criminal  permission  of  the  authorities,  on  the  pretext  that  the 
materials  were  necessary  for  public  works,  etc." 

This  last  effort  to  heal  the  wounds  of  the  city  by  Majorian, 
who  had  been  made  Emperor  in  457  by  the  will  of  the  bar- 
barian leader  of  mercenaries,  Ricimer,  failed  because  Ricimer 
aimed  at  being  the  real  ruler,  like  a  Merovingian  mayor  of 
the  palace.  Finding  Majorian  lacking  in  subservience  and 
filled  with  antique  Roman  pride,  Ricimer  assassinated  him 
in  461. 

In  the  field  of  Christian  art,  Leo  was  extremely  active, 
although  his  monuments  have  left  but  few  traces.  One  of  the 
bevy  of  pious  Roman  women,  Demetrias,  of  the  house  of  the 
Anicii,  pupil  and 


^^m^^^s^m 


friend  of  S.  Au- 
gustine and  S. 
Jerome,  left  her 
fortune  for  the 
construction  of  a 
basilica  on  the  Via 
Latina,  dedicated 
to  S.  Stephen. 
Leo,  who  was 
made  her    execu-  Capitals  at  S.  Stefano  on  the  Via  Latina. 

tor,  made  the  priest  Tigrinus  building-superintendent  of  the 
new  church.  It  was  not  built  until  the  end  of  Leo's  pontificate 
(460-461),  and  its  ruins  show  the  crude  workmanship  of  the 
decades  following  the  sack  of  Genseric. 

This  was  not  the  only  work  done  by  testamentary  funds. 


64  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

The  facade  mosaic  of  S.  Peter  was  given  by  the  ex-pretorian 
prefect  Marinianus  and  his  wife  Anastasia. 

The  L.  P.  proves  the  extent  of  Leo's  energy  in  repairing  the 
damages  of  455.  He  renewed  the  ceilings  of  all  three  of  the 
greatest  basilicas,  —  the  Lateran,  S.  Peter  and  S.  Paul,  —  and 
he  replaced  by  others  all  the  stolen  sacred  utensils  of  the 
Roman  churches :  renovavit  post  cladem  Wandalicam  omnia 
ministeria  sacrata  ai^gentea  per  omnes  titulos. 

The  only  work  that  has  survived  is  the  mosaic  of  the  tri- 
umphal arch  of  S.  Paul,  and  that  is  so  badly  restored  as  to 
have  hardly  more  than  the  form  of  the  original.  It  was  com- 
pleted in  the  early  part  of  Leo's  reign,  with  the  help  of  the 
Empress  Galla  Placidia. 

Of  his  basilica  to  S.  Cornelius  over  the  cemetery  of  Callixtus 
nothing  remains.  He  built  the  first  monastery  attached  to  the 
basilica  of  S.  Peter  (SS.  John  and  Paul)  to  supply  clergy  for 
continuous  service,  thus  popularizing  a  series  that  was  being 
continually  enlarged,  which  became  indispensable  in  church 
organization,  and  an  important  source  of  art  production. 

Hilary's  Revival.  —  It  is  almost  inexplicable  how  the  pontifi- 
cate of  Hilary  (461-468)  could  furnish  such  a  mass  of  artistic 
matter.  His  group  of  annexes  to  the 
Constantinian  baptistery  was  certainly 
one  of  the  most  interesting  in  Rome  — 
the  oratory  of  the  Cross  with  its  court, 
and  those  of  John  the  Baptist  and  John 
the  Evangelist  with  their  mosaics  and 
bronze  doors. ^  A  part  of  them  are 
Baptistry  of  the  Lateran.  among  the  few  surviving  relics  of  the 
primitive  group  of  buildings  at  the 
Lateran,  including  the  baptistery  itself  which  he  reconstructed. 
Its  wooden  roof  contrasted  with  the  dome  of  S.  Costantia  marks 
the  decay  of  architecture  since  Constantine. 

His  favorite  basilica,  however,  seems  to  have  been  S. 
Lorenzo,  where  he  was  buried.     He  added  to  it  a  monastery, 

1  Fecit  oraturia  III  in  baptisterio  basilicas  Constantinianaj,  Sancti  Jbhannis 
Baptistse  et  Sancti  Johannis  Evangelistse  et  S.  Crucis,  onrnia  ex  argento  et 
lapidibus  pretiosis. 


ROME  FROM  ALARIC  TO   THEODORIC  65 

and  a  Papal  palace  or  villa  with  hot  and  cold  baths,  quarters 
for  pilgrims  and  a  library  for  both  Greek  and  Latin  books. 
He  built  a  similar  palace  at  S.  Paul. 

The  bare  enumeration  of  his  numerous  gifts  to  the  churches 
suggests  the  immense  wealth  of  the  Church,  due  partly  to  the 
successful  policy  of  Leo  the  Great.  We  can  only  doubt 
whether  the  quality  of  their  art  equalled  their  number  and 
material. 

Simplicius  and  Barbarian  Rule.  —  In  the  times  of  Pope  Sim- 
plicius  (468-483)  the  pale  travesty  of  an  Empire  of  the  West 
ceased  to  be  even  a  stage  property.  Ricimer,  after  allowing 
the  incompetence  of  the  puppet  Emperor,  Anthemius,  whom  he 
had  grudgingly  accepted  from  Byzantium,  to  become  thoroughly 
evident  in  the  futile  expedition  against  the  Vandals,  made  se- 
lection of  Olybrius  as  his  successor.  When  Anthemius  dared 
to  resist  him  in  Rome,  Ricimer  besieged  and  captured  it  in 
472.  Except  that  the  city  was  given  over  to  pillage,  we  are  in 
the  dark  as  to  the  extent  of  the  disaster.  Pour  years  of  anarchy 
followed,  until,  in  476,  Odoacer,  after  obtaining  the  leadership 
of  the  barbarian  mercenaries,  abolished  even  the  title  of  Em- 
peror of  the  West,  and  frankly  assumed  to  rule  in  Italy  as 
king.  The  Eastern  Emperor,  Zeno,  was  content  to  let  him 
govern  it  under  the  sophism  that  he  was  a  Byzantine  official, 
a  "  patricius,"  and  that  Italy  thus  became  a  province  of  the 
Eastern  Empire  —  a  figment  at  which  Odoacer  was  well  content 
to  wink. 

The  following  thirteen  years  under  Olybrius  were  politically 
peaceful.  But  what  was  their  effect  upon  the  art  and  monuments 
of  Rome  ?  For  the  first  time  Rome  was  under  the  direct  yoke 
of  the  barbarian.  With  the  seat  of  government  at  Ravenna, 
with  the  financial  aid  of  the  Eastern  Emperor  withdrawn,  with 
the  cessation  of  the  frumentatio  for  the  people,  Rome  must 
have  felt  economically  pinched  and  incapable  of  recuperating 
from  the  last  pillage.  There  was  also,  for  a  time,  at  least,  an 
interregnum  in  the  upper  magistracy,  as  the  illiterate  barbarian 
cared  nothing  for  the  mechanism  of  civil  administration.  We 
must  imagine  that  there  was  a  complete  lapse  in  the  care  of 
public  monuments  —  both  in  appropriations  and  officials  — and 


66  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

that  ill  these  years  before  the  advent  of  Theodoric,  great  prog- 
ress in  disintegration  was  made. 

The  appropriation  of  several  public  buildings  by  the  Church 
is  not  only  a  proof  of  this  but  also  of  the  lapse  of  those  strict 
imperial  regulations  that  had  guarded  ancient  monuments. 
We  may  well  imagine  that  Pope  Simplicius  did  not  feel  it 
necessary  to  ask  permission  of  the  Emperor  Zeno,  who  had 
abandoned  Rome  and  Italy  to  their  fate,  or  of  the  barbarian 
leader,  who  was  probably  entirely  ignorant  of  the  governmental 
ownership  of  public  buildings. 

At  all  events,  the  Liher  Pontificalis  is  authority  for  the  fact, 
authenticated  by  a  dedicatory  inscription,  that  the  Pope  trans- 
formed the  beautiful  public  hall  of  Junius  Bassus,  already 
described  as  one  of  the  most  interesting  works  of  the  time  of 
Constantine,  into  a  church  of  S.  Andrew.  An  apse  was  added 
and  decorated  with  a  mosaic,  but  otherwise  there  was  little 
change.  The  elliptical  vestibule  was  used  as  a  narthex,  no 
colonnades  were  added  in  the  interior  to  divide  it  into  nave 
and  aisles,  and  the  superb  marble  in- 
crustations were  left  to  decorate  the 
walls.  It  was  not  directly,  but  through 
the  munificence  of  the  Gothic  chieftain 
Valila,  that  the  Pope  obtained  posses- 
sion of  the  building. 

Here  enters  also  upon  the  scene  the 
"  sphynx  of  the  Coelian,"  the  circular 
church  of  San  Stefano  Rotondo,  dedi- 
cated, as  the   Liber  Pontijicalis    tells 
S.  Stefano  Rotondo.  i        ci-        t   •       ^       tj.    •      j_i 

US,   by    Simplicius.^      It  is   the  most 

peculiarly  shaped  church:  an  enormous  central  tower-like 
drum  supported  on  20  columns  and  surrounded  by  a  second 
row   of  28   columns   intersected   by   four   colonnaded  wings. 

1  This  is  the  passage  in  the  life  of  Simplicius  that  concerns  his  buildings: 
"Hie  dedicavit  basilicam  Sancti  Stephani  in  Celio  monte,  in  urbe  Roma, 
et  basilicam  beati  apostoli  Andrew  iuxta  basilicam  Sanctae  Mariae,  et  aliam 
basilicam  Sancti  Stefani  iuxta  basilicam  Sancti  Laurenti,  et  aliam  basilicam 
intra  urbe  Roma,  iuxta  palatium  Licinianum,  beata?  martyris  Bibianae,  ubi 
corpus  eius  requiescit."  .  .  .  Hie  fecit  in  ecclesia  Romana  scyphum  aureum, 
pens.  lib.  V;  canthara  argentea  ad  beatum  Petrum  XVI,  pens.  sing.  lib.  XCI. 


ROME  FROM  ALARIC  TO   THEODORIC 


67 


Though  shorn  of  some  of  its  size  at  the  Renaissance,  it  is  im- 
pressive and  mysterious.  Some  of  its  capitals  are  antique : 
most  are  contemporary.  According  to  most  modern  critics 
this  building  would  be  another  example  of  the  ease  with  which 
public  civil  structures  were  then  annexed  by  the  Church,  but 
no  such  secular  building  can  be  shown  to  have  existed  then 


Interior  of  S.  Stefano  Rotondo. 
(Fifth  century.) 


nor  can  it  be  traced  in  the  present  church.  Most  of  its  decora- 
tion is  posterior  even  to  Simplicius.  It  was  a  religious  struc- 
ture from  the  beginning. 

Two  mosaics  of  this  time,  in  the  apses  of  S.  Andrea  in 
Catabarbara  and  S.  Agata  in  Suburra,  represented  Christ  among 
the  apostles,  and,  though  destroyed,  the  drawings  made  by 
Renaissance  students  show  heavy  realistic  types  of  statuesque 
character.  The  artists  who  worked  between  460  and  475  in 
painting  were  still  of  the  same  school,  therefore,  as  the 
mosaicists  of  S.  Sabina. 


68  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

The  three  ensuing  reigns  of  Felix  III  (483-492),  Gelasius 
(492-496)  and  Anastasius  II  (496-498)  appear  to  have  been 
artistically  sterile.  The  confused  and  insecure  political  con- 
dition to  which  this  was  partly  due  came  to  an  end  with  the 
advent  of  Theodoric  the  Goth. 


/< 


III.  ROME  UNDER   THBODORIC 

After  a  brief  surcease  the  influence  of  Ravenna  on  Roman 
art  was  once  more  intensified  under  Theodoric,  who  brought  the 
two  cities  into  the  closest  connection  by  placing  the  civil 
administration  of  Rome  so  completely  in  the  hands  of  his  own 
appointees  and  by  overseeing  so  closely  from  Ravenna  the  de- 
tails of  the  restoration,  care  and  construction  of  monuments. 
He  even  appointed  the  architects  and  engineers  in  charge  of 
Roman  monuments.     It  is  during  the  forty  years  between  his 


Corinthian  Capitals  of  Sixth  Century. 
(1)  S.  Mftitino  ai  Monti  (2)  Palatine  (8)  S.  Lorenzo 

(c.  500).  (c.  500).  (57&-690). 


advent  and  the  coming  of  Belisarius  that  Roman  art  was  more 
generally  affected  than  before  in  all  its  branches  by  the  Ra- 
venna school.  This  is  particularly  evident  in  architecture, 
in  the  decorative  details  and  the  treatment  of  capitals.  In 
the  time  of  Popes  Hilary  and  Simplicius,  in  the  calamitous 
times  after  Genseric's  sack,  the  handling  of  such  work  had  been 
deplorably  crude  and  helplessly  inefficient  Only  the  intention 
remained  classic.  How  can  we  explain,  then,  except  by  the 
advent  of  artists  from  Ravenna,  the  sudden  change  that  is 
evident  in  all  the  works  of  Theodoric's  age  in  Rome  ?  The 
church  of  S.  Martino  ai  Monti,  for  example,  has  work  that  is 

69 


70  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

superb,  equal  to  the  best  of  the  age  of  Constantine,  but  of  a 
totally  different  t}''pe,  analogous  to  that  in  the  churches  of 
Ravenna  itself,  such  as  S.  Apollinare  Nuovo,  S.  Spirito  and 
S.  Agata,  though  even  superior  in  handling. 

In  one  branch,  however,  Rome  still  held  supremacy,  that  of 
surface  revetments  in  various  marbles  cut  into  patterns,  such 
as  we  have  seen  at  the  basilica  of  Junius  Bassus  and  at  S. 
Sabina.     For  there  is  a  letter  written  c.  508  by  Theodoric  to 


Interior  of  S.  Martino  ai  Monti. 

(c.  500  and  liarocoo.) 

the  prefect  of  Rome,  Agapitus,  asking  him  to  send  to  Ravenna 
skilled  marmoraiii,  marble-workers,  for  the  decoration  of  the 
basilica  of  Hercules  with  "  pictures  in  many-colored  marble 
incrustations." 

Among  the  interesting  documents  preserved  in  the  collection 
of  Theodoric's  learned  secretary  Cassiodorus,  we  find  a  number 
bearing  on  the  architecture  of  Rome,  the  restoration  of  the  XJir- 


ROME    UNDER   THEODORIC  71 

cus  Maximus,  the  theatre  of  Pompej,  the  city  walls,  the  palace 
of  the  Caesars,  the  public  storehouse  for  grain,  the  aqueducts, 
etc.  The  Senate  was  sharply  reproved  by  him  for  lack  of  vig- 
ilance, the  prefect  was  reminded  of  his  duties,  Symmachus 
praised  for  his  architectural  enterprises.  Officials  were  ap- 
pointed to  oversee  the  aqueducts  and  sewers,  the  government 
manufactory  of  bricks,  the  restoration  and  care  of  the  imperial 
palaces  on  the  Palatine,  the  preparation  of  cement  and  mortar. 
Most  interesting  is  the  oath  of  office  taken  before  the  prefect 
by  whoever  was  made  city  inspecting  architect. 

Symmachus.  —  Notwithstanding  his  long  and  bloody  contro- 
versy with  the  antipope  Laurentius,  Pope  Symmachus  (498- 
514)  was  fortunate  in  living  under  King  Theodoric.  The 
churches  as  well  as  the  civil  buildings  of  Rome  were  thoroughly 
repaired.  Everywhere  we  find  the  bricks  and  tiles  of  Theodoric. 
Symmachus  himself  had  the  oversight  of  such  work  for  eccle^ 
siastical  buildings,  while  profiting  by  the  materials,  such  as 
bricks,  supplied  free  by  the  manufactories  of  the  State  and 
probably  also  making  use  of  stone-cutters  and  other  artists  from 
Ravenna.  The  most  important  of  his  early  works  were  at  S. 
Peter,  while  Laurentius,  his  rival,  still  had  possession  of  the 
Lateran  and  of  S.  Paul.  He  was  the  first  Pope  to  make  a 
I'apal  residence  at  S.  Peter,  for  he  built  a  palace,  symmetri- 
cally, on  either  side  of  the  atrium  in  front  of  the  basilica,  d'eco- 
rating  the  centre  of  the  square  with  the  famous  fountain  of  the 
bronze  Pine-cone  (Pigna),  widening  the  staircase  of  approach 
to  the  basilica  and  decorating  the  atrium  with  mosaics.  He 
also  built  or  restored  a  number  of  other  annexes  to  the  basilica, 
including  the  beautiful  circular  church  of  S.  Andrew,  S.  Peter's 
brother,  to  whom  Simplicius  had  already  built  a  small  basilica. 

The  ever  increasing  grasp  of  the  Church  in  matters  that  in 
imperial  times  had  been  civil,  as  well  as  the  development  of  the 
Christian  idea  of  charity,  so  foreign  to  the  old  paganism,  is 
shown  by  the  group  of  hospitals  and  hospices  which  Symmachus 
built  in  connection  with  the  great  suburban  basilicas  —  at  S. 
Peter,  and  S.  Paul  and  S.  Lorenzo, — besides  that  at  Portus, 
where  the  previous  hospital  of  Pammachius  was  probably  in- 
sufficient to  provide  for  the  seafaring  population. 


72 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH 


For  four  years  in  the  early  part  of  the  pontificate  of 
Symmachus  (501-505)  the  antipope  Laurentius  had  practical 
possession  of  all  the  churches  of  Rome,  with  the  exception  of 
S.  Peter,  and  an  interesting  memorial  of  his  ephemeral  rule  is 
a  part  of  the  series  of  portrait  busts  of  the  Popes  painted  in 
medallions  on  the  two  walls  of  the  main  nave,  one  of  the  last 
works  of  painting  in  which  the  Roman  school  showed  its  in- 
dependence. 

Hormisdas  and  John.  —  Under  Hormisdas  (514-523),  the 
peaceful  course  of  events  continued,  and  was  even  accentuated 
by  the  reestablishment,  in  519,  amid  universal  rejoicing,  of  the 
union  with  the  Eastern  Church,  which  healed  the  schism  of  thirty- 
five  years.  But  the  good  effects  of  this  reconciliation  were 
more  than  nullified  by  the  sudden  development  of  the  enmity  of 


Choir-screen  of  Hormisdas  at  S.  Cleraente  (restored). 


Theodoric,  which  began  under  Pope  John  I  (523-526),  perhaps 
out  of  Arian  jealousy  of  this  very  reconciliation  with  Constan- 
tinople, at  a  time  when  Justin  issued  his  famous  decree  of  per- 
secution against  the  Arians  (523).  Foreseeing,  perhaps,  the  By- 
zantine attempt  to  wrest  Italy  from  the  Goths,  the  aging  king 
enveloped  in  his  fatal  suspicions  the  last  eminent  Romans  — 
Boethius  and  Symmachus  —  and  his  reign  ended  in  acts  of 
suspicious  tyranny  and  violence  recalling  the  days  of  Domitian. 
His  plan  was  not  only  to  extinguish  any  desire  for  political 
intrigues  with  Byzantium  on  the  part  of  the  Senate,  but  to 
make  of  the  Papacy  a  political  slave  and  tool.  He  obliged  Pope 
John  I  to  make  the  long  journey  to  Constantinople  to  ask  for 
the  cessation  of  the  Arian  persecution  and  on  his  return  threw 
him  into  prison  at  Ravenna,  where  he  died.     Theodoric  then 


ROME   UNDER  THEODORIC 


73 


forced  on  the  clergy  his  candidate  for  the  Papacy,  Felix  IV 
(526-530).  This  led  to  a  clearer  definition  between  the  two 
hostile  currents  in  Rome  —  the  Gothic  and  the  Byzantine  — 
which  at  once  showed  itself  in  the  party  of  the  Greek  antipope, 
Dioscorus. 

These  two  currents  are  evident,  I  believe,  in  contemporary 
art.  The  most  characteristic  example  of  each  are,  on  the 
Byzantine  side,  the  decorations  of  S.  Clemen te  by  the  Presbyter 


Apsidal  Mosaic  of  SS.  Cosma  e  Damiano. 

Mercuriiis,  who  afterwards  became  Pope  John  IT  (533-535); 
and  on  the  Gothic  side,  the  mosaics  of  SS.  Cosma  e  Damiano, 
done  under  Felix  IV,  the  Gothic  partisan,  while  a  middle 
ground  is  held  by  some  of  the  recently  discovered  frescos  in 
the  cemetery  of  Commodilla,  which  seem  to  be  those  men- 
tioned in  the  Liber  Pontijicalis  as  being  ordered  by  Pope  John 
I  (523-526). 

I  am  aware  that,  in  the  unanimous  opinion  of  critics,  the 
superb  apsidal  mosaic  in  SS.  Cosma  e  Damiano  is  the   last 


74 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH 


effort  of  pure  Roman  art,  before  the  advent  of  Byzantinism ; 
but  I  cannot  find  in  any  other  contemporary  or  previous  work 
of  the  Roman  school  the  element  of  barbaric  intensity,  of 
almost  ferocious  energy,  so  well  embodied  in  thick-set  bodies 
and  harsh,  heavy  features.  It  stands  alone,  the  work  of  a  man 
who,  if  not  himself  a  barbarian  pupil  of  the  school  of  Rome 
or  Ravenna,  represented  the  Gothic  spirit  violently  divorced 
from  Byzantium.  Yet  the  elements  already  assimilated  could 
not  be  thrown  off.     Hovering  over  these  militant  figures  in 

the  hemicycle  are  the 
angels  with  ideal  faces 
and  outspread  wings  on 
the  face  of  the  apse  ! 

Without  any  admix- 
ture of  Roman  or  bar- 
baric are  the  frescos  of 
the  subterranean  chapel 
in  the  cemetery  of  Com- 
modilla,  for  which  the 
closest  analogies  must 
be  sought  in  Ravenna,  at 
S.  ApollinareNuovo  and 
S.  Vitale. 

The  present  sc^oZa  can- 
torum  at  S.  Clemente, 
with  its  marble  screen 
and  pilasters  and  its  am- 
bones,  is  reconstructed 
largely  from  those  with 
which  the  presbyter  of 
the  basilica —  Mercurius 
—  decorated  it  under  Pope  Hormisdas,  completing  it  after  he 
became  Pope  as  John  II  in  533.  Part  of  the  epistyle  and  two 
of  the  columns  of  his  ciborium  are  also  preserved.  Their 
basket-work  capitals  are  purely  Byzantine,  of  the  type  that 
was  adopted  also  by  the  schools  of  Ravenna  and  the  other 
cities  on  the  Adriatic  at  this  time,  such  as  Parenzo,  Pola 
and  Grado.     Equally  foreign  to  classic  Roman  tradition  is  the 


Capital  of  Old  Basilica  of  S.  Clemente. 

(Early  sixth  century.) 


ROME    UNDER   THEO DORIC  75 

decoration  in  low  relief  of  circles  and  crosses  on  the  panels  of 
the  schola  caiitorum  and  the  schematic  vines  of  its  pilasters, 
an  importation  direct  from  Constantinople  rather  than  through 
Ravenna. 

Rome  still  the  Antique  City.  —  The  impression  we  receive  of 
the  Rome  of  Theodoric  is  precisely  that  expressed  by  the 
sentence  laus  Gotliorum  est  civilitas  custodita.  Theodoric's 
preoccupation  to  keep  intact  the  antique  tradition  was  carried 
out  in  the  most  trivial  details.  All  outward  life  moved  in  the 
old  grooves.  The  Senate  met;  the  consuls  presided  over  the 
games ;  the  Circus,  the  public  baths  and  the  theatre  were 
still  the  great  resorts  of  the  masses  to  whom  panem  et  circenseSj 
though  with  reduced  munificence,  were  still  freely  offered;  the 
Forum  of  Trajan  still  received  honorary  statues  and  was  the 
resort  of  the  literary. 

The  city  was  still  fundamentally  antique  in  its  appearance 
and  in  its  daily  life.  The  dissensions  due  to  the  aggressive 
Arianism  and  the  bloody  suppression  of  the  national  party  in 
Rome  in  the  last  years  of  Theodoric  prepared  the  way  for  the 
attempt  to  reunite  Italy  to  the  Empire  under  his  weak  suc- 
cessors, an  attempt  that  was  encouraged  by  the  Byzantine 
party  formed  in  Rome  itself.  Had  the  fatal  result  been  fore- 
seen by  the  Italians  they  would  have  far  preferred  the  some- 
what harmless  friction  with  an  alien  race  to  the  complete  ruin 
that  resulted  from  their  blind  appeal  to  Byzantium. 


IV.    ROME   AFTER   THE   GOTHIC  WARS:    THE 
BYZANTINE  CITY 

No  knight-errant  was  ever  sent  by  his  lady-love  on  an  ap- 
parently more  hopeless  mission  than  Belisarius  received  from 
Justinian  when  he  was  charged  with  the  recovery  of  Italy  and 
Africa  from  the  Goths  and  Vandals  and  its  reunion  to  the 
Empire.  What  his  weaker  predecessors  had  acquiesced  in 
seemed  a  weakness  to  Justinian,  who,  though  far  from  a  war- 
rior himself,  planned  a  reconstruction  of  the  Koman  Empire  — 
religious,  legal  and  political  —  that  involved  extensive  wars 
and  conquests. 

In  Belisarius  he  found  a  perfect  instrument,  a  disinterested, 
unworldly,  unambitious  genius,  whose  exploits  read  like  fan- 
tastic fairy  tales.  How  this  man,  with  a  handful  of  hybrid 
soldiers,  never  over  twenty-five  thousand,  first  put  an  end  to 
the  Vandal  kingdom  in  Africa,  and  then,  landing  in  Sicily  in 
532,  marched  northward,  occupied  Kome  and  fought  the  Goths 
repeatedly  to  a  standstill,  to  leave  their  final  subjugation  to  his 
successor,  Narses,  in  553,  is  a  page  of  almost  pure  romance. 
But  these  wars  of  over  a  quarter  of  a  century  were  more  de- 
structive at  the  beginning  of  the  Middle  Ages  in  Italy  than  the 
plague  was  to  be  at  its  close  in  the  fifteenth  century.  Two- 
thirds  of  the  population  is  said  to  have  perished  in  the  life-and- 
death  struggle  of  the  heroic  Goths.  Procopius  reckoned  the 
loss  at  about  fifteen  millions.  From  one  end  of  Italy  to  the 
other  the  waves  of  battle  surged  ;  yet  of  all  the  districts,  Rome 
and  the  Campagna  were  by  far  the  severest  sufferers. 

Depopulation  of  Rome.  —  During  and  between  its  sieges 
Rome  was  left  practically  without  inhabitants.  Its  aqueducts 
were  cut;  its  country-side  made  desolate.  Ancient  and  modern 
villas,  up  to  this  time  retaining  a  shadow  of  the  beauty  of  the 
days  of  Cicero  and  Horace,  were  thoroughly  gutted.    The  rows 

76 


ROME  AFTER   THE  GOTHIC  WARS  77 

of  ancient  statues  cast  down  upon  the  enemy  from  the  parapets 
of  Hadrian's  tomb  are  the  symbol  of  the  final  descent  of  the 
gods  and  emperors  even  from  being  a  harmless  decoration  to 
the  city. 

When  the  war  ended  in  the  annihilation  of  the  Goth,  there 
was  no  vitality  to  repair  damages.  To  make  doubly  sure  a 
vindictive  nemesis  soon  sent  the  plague  stalking  from  one  end 
of  Italy  to  the  other.  And  with  it  came  the  uncouth  Lom- 
bards, who  took  possession  of  the  entire  north  and  of  a  large 
part  of  the  central  and  southern  sections  of  the  peninsula, 
lea\dng  Venice,  Naples  and  the  extreme  south  in  the  weak  grasp 
of  Byzantium. 

In  Rome  itself  the  population  never  reassembled ;  personal 
ownership  had  largely  ceased;  property  and  prosperity  had 
vanished  ;  all  agriculture,  trade  and  industry  were  brought  to 
a  standstill.  It  was  a  total  disruption  of  society.  Ancient  and 
early  Christian  Rome  had  actually  ceased  to  exist  as  an  or- 
ganization. The  few  thousands  whom  we  find  within  the  walls 
at  the  close  of  the  war  were  mainly  a  poverty-stricken  herd 
of  the  lowest  class  of  Italians  or  of  barbarian  immigrants, 
who  huddled  in  hovels  near  the  Tiber,  getting  their  supply  of 
water  from  the  river  or  from  wells,  for  there  were  no  means  in 
the  impoverished  city  for  restoring  the  aqueducts.  There  was 
no  longer  any  pretence  of  restoring  or  respecting  the  ancient 
monuments.  The  Emperor  Justinian  in  his  Pragmatic  Sanc- 
tion, evidently  blind  to  the  real  squalid  facts,  amusingly  accords 
permission  to  private  persons  in  Rome  to  restore  ancient  monu- 
ments at  their  own  expense.  The  real  facts  are  hinted  at  in 
the  letters  of  Pope  Pelagius  appealing  for  the  bare  necessities 
of  life  for  the  people. 

Under  the  circumstances,  Justinian  found  that  the  one 
indigenous  influence  upon  which  he  could  rely  to  support 
imperial  authority  in  that  part  of  Italy  which  the  Byzantine 
troops  were  able  to  retain,  was  the  Church  and  the  Papacy. 
With  the  fall  of  the  Goths,  the  Arianism  of  which  they  were 
the  champions  had  been  definitely  conquered  by  orthodoxy. 
At  the  same  time  the  Popes,  under  tyrannical  pressure  at 
Constantinople,  had  been  forced  to  agree  to  certain  humiliating 


78  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

conditions  in  the  recognition  of  the  ecclesiastical  and  civil 
control  of  the  Eastern  Empire  over  Rome.  In  return  the 
Church  was  granted  extensive  civil  authority  in  Italy,  and  the 
Papacy  grew  very  soon  to  be  the  rallying  point  for  the  public 
forces  of  social  reconstruction.  It  is  true  that  there  grew  up 
an  elaborate  system  of  Byzantine  administration,  with  its 
centre  at  Ravenna  in  the  person  of  an  exarch,  the  viceroy 
of  the  Emperor  in  Italy ;  that  nnder  him  were  dukes  who 
were  his  representatives  in  Rome,  in  Gaeta,  in  Naples,  in 
Sicily ;  that  there  was  a  pretence  of  financial  control  and  of 
both  political  and  military  direction.  But  in  the  general  dis- 
ruption this  was  largely  nominal  except  in  a  few  centres, 
because  the  old  municipal  organizations  were  dissolved. 

The  only  living  institution,  then,  was  the  Church ;  no  longer 
as  wealthy,  to  be  sure,  as  in  the  time  of  Leo  the  Great,  but 
now  even  more  comparatively  influential  because  it  was  the 
only  refuge  of  the  people. 

Gregory.  —  Gregory  the  Great  individualized  this  movement 
and  led  the  reconstruction,  not  only  in  Rome,  but  in  Italy.  First 
a  patrician,  a  worldling  and  an  official  of  the  Byzantine  admin- 
istration who  then  became  a  self-sacrificing  ecclesiastic,  Gregory 
turned  his  father's  palace  into  a  monastery,  and  was  the  last 
of  the  Church  Fathers.  Under  his  administration  the  Roman 
Church  grew  wealthy,  increased  its  possessions  in  all  parts  of 
Italy,  becoming  the  largest  holder  of  landed  property,  as  the 
Emperors  used  to  be.  Gregory  established  his  authority  more 
effectually  over  provincial  bishops,  keeping  constantly  in  touch 
with  them,  reformed  the  clergy,  raised  the  people  from  misery, 
encouraged  commerce,  industry  and  art,  established  more  dig- 
nified and  independent  relations  with  the  Byzantine  empire, 
organized  a  Pontifical  court,  elevated  the  ritual  and  music  of 
the  Church,  and  accustomed  the  people  to  look  to  the  Papacy 
for  whatever  of  good  could  be  brought  to  pass.  He  laid  the 
foundation  for  the  renewed  artistic  influence  of  Rome. 

In  order  to  carry  out  his  work  churches  and  monasteries 
were  founded  and  endowed  as  well  as  libraries,  hospitals  and 
inns,  schools  for  music  and  general  teaching.  Once  more,^in 
the  first  decade  of  the  seventh  century  Rome  began  to  reassert 


ROME  AFTER  THE  GOTHIC  WARS  79 

herself  and  Gregory,  though  fundamentally  a  Latin  survival, 
ushered  in  the  new  era  of  Byzantine  Rome. 

Reorganization  of  the  City.  —  The  modest  revival  was  centred 
in  a  very  small  quarter  of  the  ancient  city,  close  to  the  Tiber. 
The  medley  of  Italians,  Greeks  and  barbarians  who  gathered 
here  viewed  with  a  mixture  of  awe  and  contempt  the  deserted 
area  of  the  Forums,  the  Palatine  and  the  Campus  Martins. 
They  favored  the  low  quarters,  abandoning  the  hills,  so  that 
they  could  command  the  meagre  trade  of  the  city  that  came  to 
them  up  the  river,  for  the  old  ports  of  Portus  and  Ostia  were 
disused,  and  the  city  quays  were  alone  used  for  supplies  from 
the  coast  towns,  from  Sicily  and  even  from  Greece  and  Africa. 

Rome  becomes  Byzantine.  —  The  majority  of  these  newcom- 
ers were  either  of  Greek  blood  or  came  from  some  part  of  the 
Byzantine  domains,  spoke  Greek  far  more  than  Latin,  and  that 
part  of  the  Tiber  bank  which  was  the  centre  of  the  settlement 
was  afterwards  always  called  Ripa  Grceca.  They  clubbed  to- 
gether in  an  association  called  Schola  Grceca,  which  probably 
served  as  a  model  for  the  different  scholce,  national  associations, 
or  guilds  into  which  the  city  was  soon  divided,  the  predeces- 
sors of  the  organization  of  the  mediaeval  rioni  or  quarters. 

The  Byzantine  invasion  was  not  confined  to  the  lay  part 
of  the  population.  It  took  even  more  complete  possession  of 
both  the  regular  and  secular  clergy,  of  the  monasteries  and  of 
the  Pontifical  court  and  the  episcopacy.  This  was  of  para- 
mount importance  because  in  the  new  Rome  the  revival  of  art 
and  literature  was  to  be  absolutely  in  the  hands  of  the  clergy, 
especially  of  the  monks. 

Greek  Monks.  —  Thickly  scattered  over  the  Aventine  and 
more  sparsely  elsewhere  were  numerous  monasteries,  the 
majority  occupied  by  Greek  monks  who  followed  the  rule  of  S. 
Basil.  Singularly  enough  the  great  Western  order  of  S.  Bene- 
dict did  not  gain  as  strong  a  foothold  in  Rome  for  over  two 
hundred  years,  until  the  Carlovingian  Emperors  became  such 
sturdy  patrons  of  Western  monasticism.  The  Liber  Ponti- 
Jicalis,  or  official  Papal  Chronicle,  composed  from  the  Papal 
archives  at  different  intervals  between  c.  500  and  880  a.d., 
gives  long  lists  of  works  of  art  produced  at  this  time  in  Rome, 


80  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

and  it  is  evident  that  the  great  majority  were  executed  by 
artists  in  the  Koman  monasteries,  especially  by  the  Byzantine 
monks.  Mosaic  pictures  and  frescos,  gold  and  silver  altar 
canopies  and  altar-fronts  as  well  as  statues,  embroidered  and 
woven  hangings  with  elaborate  figured  compositions,  sacred  vest- 
ments and  vessels,  are  enumerated  in  such  quantities  and  in 
such  terms  as  to  show  not  only  the  enormous  productivity  of 
these  monastic  schools  but  the  Byzantine  origin  of  a  large  pro- 
portion of  the  work.  While  all  the  objects  in  precious  metals 
have  disappeared,  as  well  as  the  embroideries  and  tissues, 
there  remains  a  large  series  of  mosaics  and  wall  paintings  to 
show  how  thoroughly  Byzantinized  Koman  art  had  become  in 
the  hands  of  Greek  artists  and  their  pupils. 

A  number  of  these  monastic  establishments  remain,  though 
largely  reconstructed.  At  the  central  church  of  the  Greek 
community,  S.  Maria  in  Cosmedin,  there  were  monks  who 
were  reenforced  in  752  by  newcomers  fleeing  from  the  icono- 
clastic persecutions  of  the  Byzantine  Emperors.  The  tendency 
to  image  worship  in  the  Greek  Church,  which  had  increased 
alarmingly  during  the  seventh  century,  had  provoked  the 
famous  reaction  against  the  making  of  sacred  images  which 
was  headed  by  the  emperors  and  resulted  in  the  destruction 
of  many  works  of  art,  the  temporary  substitution  of  decora- 
tive and  secular  themes,  the  harsh  treatment  of  artists  even 
to  the  cutting  off  of  their  right  hands,  and  the  consequent 
flight  of  many  of  them  from  the  East  to  the  freedom  of  Italy, 
especially  of  Rome,  where  their  services  were  in  demand. 

But  while  this  emigration,  which  was  almost  continuous 
throughout  the  eighth  century,  added  considerably  to  the  Greek 
monastic  colony  in  Rome,  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  imagine  that 
it  had  not  flourished  there  for  nearly  two  centuries  before. 
For  instance,  the  church  and  monastery  of  S.  Saba  on  the  Aven- 
tine  were  built  for  Greek  monks  who  may  have  come  from 
the  monastery  of  the  same  name  at  Jerusalem  at  some  time  in 
the  sixth  century.  At  the  same  date  the  imperial  chapel  of 
S.  Cesareo  on  the  Palatine,  where  the  images  of  the  Byzantine 
Emperors  were  placed,  was  served  by  Greek  monks,  as  was  also 
the  parish  church  of  the  Greeks,  S.  Anastasia.     Several  other 


ROME  AFTER  THE  GOTHIC  WARS  81 

Greek  monasteries  were  then  prominent.  Those  of  Renas  and 
Domus  Arsicia  were  so  important  as  to  send  delegates  to  the 
(Ecumenical  Council  held  at  Constantinople  in  680-681. 

The  most  significant  fact  of  all,  however,  is  that  after  Pope 
Gregory  the  Great  founded  the  monastery  of  S.  Andrew  in 
his  paternal  house  on  the  Coelian,  it  contained  Greek  monks 
and  was  governed  by  Greek  abbots.  S.  Erasmo  and  S.  Maria 
Antiqua  also  belong  to  this  early  Byzantine  group.  To  the 
later  iconoclastic  group  belonged  the  large  establishment  of 
S.  Silvestro  in  Capite. 

Greek  Popes  and  Clergy.  —  It  was  not  long  after  the  death  of 
Gregory  the  Great  that  the  effect  of  the  influx  of  Greeks  in 
every  sphere  became  evident.  As  a  majority  of  the  Roman 
secular  clergy  seem  to  have  been  of  Greek  blood,  it  was  natural 
that  the  majority  of  the  Popes  for  over  a  century  should  be 
Greeks.  This  Greek  series,  begun  with  Pope  Theodore  in  642, 
is  continued  with  Sergius  (687),  John  VI  (701),  John  VII 
(705),  Sisinnius  (708),  Constantine  (708),  Gregory  III  (731) 
and  finally  Zacharias  in  742.  These  Popes  were  not  inter- 
lopers,- but  regular  resident  members  of  the  Roman  clergy. 

The  Papal  court  became  a  faithful  reflex  of  this  general 
condition.  After  the  Gothic  wars  the  material  basis  and  eccle- 
siastical machinery  of  the  Papacy  required  radical  reorganiza- 
tion. The  visits  of  the  Popes  of  the  sixth  and  seventh  cen- 
turies to  Constantinople  had  given  them  a  thorough  familiarity 
with  the  elaborate  civil  and  ecclesiastical  organization  of 
Byzantium.  It  was  natural  that  the  Papacy  should  model  its 
new  court  upon  the  imperial  pattern,  especially  as  provision 
had  to  be  made,  not  as  before  for  a  purely  spiritual  and  eccle- 
siastical machinery,  but  also  for  the  secular  organization  made 
necessary  by  the  new  civil  powers  delegated  to  or  gradually 
assumed  by  the  Popes,  and  which  they  needed  to  harmonize  and 
interweave  with  the  functions  of  the  civil  officials  that  repre- 
sented Byzantine  power  in  Italy  and  Rome.  For  there  was  a 
Byzantine  dux  at  Rome,  residing  in  the  Palace  of  the  Caesars ; 
and  the  duties  of  prefect  of  the  city,  of  curator  of  the  monu- 
ments, of  commander  of  the  Roman  militia,  were  technically 
within  the  gift  of  the  Emperor. 


82  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

The  Greek  language  also  invaded  Rome.  Religious  services 
and  music  were  held  in  both  Greek  and  Latin  ;  the  confession 
of  faithjthe  ceremonies  and  anniversaries,\vere  in  both  languages. 
The  people's  choirs  that  marched  in  procession  at  religious  fes- 
tivals or  went  to  meet  Emperors,  Popes  or  minor  dignitaries 
outside  the  city  gates  sang  both  Greek  and  Latin  hymns. 

Foreign  Colonists.  —  But  to  assist  in  the  repeopling  and  resur- 
recting of  Rome  there  were  also  distinct  colonies  of  a  different 
kind.  Closest  to  the  natives  was  the  important  colony  from 
Ravenna.  It  was  part  Italian  and  part  Greek,  reflecting  the 
cosmopolitanism  of  Ravenna.  This  colony  was  augmented  by 
a  multitude  of  refugees  at  the  time  of  the  capture  of  Ravenna 
by  the  Lombards  in  the  eighth  century,  and  the  quarter  where 
they  settled,  beyond  the  Tiber,  was  called  Urhs  Havennatum, 
"  the  city  of  the  Ravennates."  It  corresponds  to  the  modern 
Trastevere. 

Another  group  of  colonies  was  formed,  principally  of  the 
nations  of  the  North,  such  as  Anglo-Saxons,  Franks  and  Lom- 
bards. Each  of  these  was  established  in  a  separate  quarter, 
owned  certain  streets,  churches,  hospitals,  and  monasteries, 
and  organized  itself  into  a  schola  for  mutual  protection  and 
cooperation.  All  pilgrims  coming  to  Rome  sought  the  hospi- 
tality of  their  own  colony,  which  was  a  sort  of  guardian  of 
national  interests.  They  naturally  grouped  themselves  around 
the  centre  and  starting-point  for  all  pilgrims,  the  Vatican 
basilica,  thus  forming  a  new  suburb  of  the  city  which  was  for- 
tified later,  in  the  Carlovingian  age,  and  called  the  Leonine 
City  from  the  Pope  who  built  it,  or  the  "  Borgo  "  from  "  Bur- 
gus  Saxonum,"  the  Saxon  Burgh. 

Monuments. —  The  monumental  history  of  Rome  at  the  be- 
ginning of  this  period  is  both  obscure  and  discouraging. 
Belisarius  himself  is  said  to  have  founded  a  church  and  a 
hospital,  but  they  seem  to  have  been  of  small  importance. 
Narses  put  up  pompous  inscriptions  on  the  insignificant  bridge 
which  he  built  over  the  Anio  in  565.  There  was  now  no  such 
thing  as  a  civil  and  civic  architecture  or  a  restoration  of  the 
monuments.  Only  a  portion  of  the  Palace  of  the  Caesars  was 
kept  in  repair  as  the  seat  of  the  Byzantine  governor  and  his  staff. 


ROME  AFTER   THE   GOTHIC   WARS  83 

The  public  baths  must  have  been  abandoned,  as  their  water 
supply  was  cut  off.  The  only  impediment  to  a  wholesale  con- 
version or  destruction  of  temples  and  other  public  monuments 
was  the  fact  that  they  were  the  property  of  the  State,  that  is, 
of  the  Byzantine  Emperor,  and  that  it  was  necessary  to  obtain 
his  permission  to  touch  or  use  any  of  them.  Not  even  the 
Pope  had  any  right  to  them.  There  being  no  imperial  funds 
for  their  repair,  disintegration  was  not  long  in  setting  in. 

A  poetic  lament  written  at  this  time  begins  thus:  — 

"  Oh,  Kome  !  built  in  past  days  by  high-born  masters, 
Thou  fallest  now  to  miserable  ruin,  subject  to  slaves. 
Long  since  thy  kings  have  left  thee. 
Thine  honor  and  thy  name  are  now  a  prey  to  Greeks." 

Previously  it  had  been  the  custom  to  tear  down  ruinous  struc- 
tures and  to  use  their  choicest  parts  in  artistic  fashion.  But 
now,  with  practically  the  whole  of  the  ancient  city  abandoned 
and  at  their  disposal  and  paganism  a  thing  of  the  past,  a 
new  fashion  set  in,  of  bodily  adapting  ancient  buildings  both 
religious  and  civil.  Of  course  this  had  not  been  an  unknown 
process  even  earlier,  but  it  had  been  rare. 

At  the  same  time  it  was  the  day  of  small  churches,  of  small 
monasteries,  of  small  ambitions  and  undertakings,  of  a  poor 
Church  and  a  poorer  population,  the  day  of  no  aristocracy,  no 
plutocracy.  We  find  a  chapel  of  S.  Maria  in  Cannapara  hidden 
in  an  angle  of  the  basilica  Julia;  a  chapel  of  the  Virgin  in  the 
Library  of  Augustus;  the  little  church  of  S.  Maria  in  Foro ; 
on  the  Rostra  the  oratory  of  Sergius  and  Bacchus.  Wherever 
possible  the  whole  of  a  structure  was  used  and  in  this  way  the 
majority  of  ancient  structures  have  been  preserved  which  still 
exist  in  Rome :  we  owe  them  to  the  Church.  The  Curia  or 
larger  Senate  Hall  became  the  church  of  S.  Adriano;  the  Sec- 
retarium  or  minor  Senate  Hall  became  S.  Martina ;  the  temple  of 
Romulus  and  the  City  Archives  had  already  become  SS.  Cosma 
e  Damiano  shortly  before  the  Gothic  wars  ;  the  temple  of  An- 
toninus and  Faustina  was  turned  into  the  church  of  S.  Lorenzo 
in  Miranda.  The  circular  Temple  of  Honor  near  the  Tiber 
and,  above  all,  the  magnificent  Pantheon  of  Agrippa  were  pre- 
served intact  by  this  transfer  to  the  Church. 


84 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH 


From  this  time  until  the  middle  of  the  eighth  century  there 
appears  to  have  been  in  Eome  no  school  of  architecture.  The 
building  done  was  of  the  most  modest  character  when  it  did 
not  consist  in  the  transformation  of  an  antique  structure.  The 
small  church  of  S.  Saba,  still  existing  in  part  under  the  pres- 
ent basilica,  the  interior  of  S.  Giorgio  in  Velabro,  are  perhaps 
the  best  instances. 

This  age  of  small  things  was,  it  is  true,  slightly  modified  by 


Library  of  Augustus,  converted  into  Church  of  S.  Mariu  Antiiiua. 


Pope  Honorius  I,  the  rebuilder  of  S.  Agnese;  but  aside  from 
this  interlude  it  continued  unbroken  through  the  series  of 
Greek  Popes  and  until  the  new  and  vitalizing  connection  with 
the  Prankish  rulers,  Pepin  and  Charlemagne,  helped  the  Papacy 
once  more  to  a  policy  and  an  art  that  were  worthy  of  the 
religious  centre  of  the  Western  world. 

Two  basilicas,  S.  Prassede  and  S.  Maria  in  Cosmedin,  illus- 
trate the  mode  of  using  ancient  materials.      In  the  first  of 


ROME  AFTER   THE  GOTHIC   WARS  85 

these  churches  Pope  Paschal  (c.  817)  framed  the  interior  out  of 
columns  and  architraves  of  the  close  of  the  fourth  century,  too 
poor  and  careless  in  workmanship  even  for  a  public  building 
of  that  date,  and  apparently  part  of  some  street  colonnade.  We 
know  that  in  the  time  of  Honorius  there  were  colonnades 
erected  in  this  very  region,  particularly  along  the  Vicus  Pa- 
ti-icius.  This  material  at  S.  Prassede  was  probably  taken 
from  these  poorly  built  colonnades  —  a  suggestion  confirmed 
by  the  very  fragmentary  bits  of  inscriptions  of  the  period 
(c.  400)  on  the  architraves.  We  can  readily  imagine  that  the 
numerous  colonnades  throughout  the  city  had  received  no  care 
since  the  Gothic  wars  and  that  those  of  the  decadence  were 
the  first  to  fall. 

The  history  of  S.  Maria  in  Cosmedin  illustrates,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  utilization  and  destruction  of  two  other  classes  of 
earlier  monuments  —  civic  structures  and  temples.  When 
this  church  was  founded,  probably  toward  the  close  of  the  sixth 
century,  it  was  on  a  small  scale  and  but  an  adaptation  of  the 
Grain  Exchange.  This  ancient  institution  was  now  quite  use- 
less, as  the  imperial  largesse  to  the  people,  by  the  distribution 
of  grain  imported  from  beyond  the  seas,  was  a  thing  of  the 
past.  The  poor  of  the  much-reduced  population  were  to  be 
provided  for  henceforth  by  distribution  on  a  very  small  scale 
at  the  diaconal  churches  now  established  in  the  various  par- 
ishes of  the  city,  and  of  which  this  very  church  of  S.  Maria  in 
Cosmedin  was  one.  The  church,  set  up  in  the  shell  of  one 
earlier  building,  was  closely  encircled  by  some  others  —  such 
as  a  temple  of  Ceres,  another  temple  of  "  Hercules,"  both 
destroyed,  and  the  other  remaining  circular  temple  of  "  Por- 
tumnus"  or  "Matuta."  Not  only  columns  and  capitals  but 
carved  marble  window  screens  and  other  details  of  the  older 
structures  were  used.  The  Liber  Pontificalis  tells  us  that  when 
Pope  Hadrian  lengthened  the  church  beyond  the  precincts  of 
the  Grain  Exchange,  he  was  obliged  to  tear  down  a  huge  over- 
hanging ancient  structure  that  threatened  to  fall  and  over- 
whelm it  —  probably  one  of  the  temples. 

Artistic  Vicissitudes  after  550.  —  What  was  the  fate  of  the 
other  arts  can  best  be  seen  by  a  brief  historic  survey  of  the 


86 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH 


artistic  activity  of  the  Popes  during  the  two  centuries  before 
the  Carlovingian  revival. 

Popes  Pelagius  I  (556-561),  John  III  (561-574)  and  Bene- 
dict I  (575-579)  have  left  no  certain  monumental  traces.  One 
great  church,  however,  was  put  up  by  Narses  and  the  first  two 
of  these  Popes  as  a  triumphal  monument  to  the  Pyrrhic  vic- 
tory of  Byzantium.  It  was  the  basilica  of  the  Apostles,  cele- 
brated by  Pope  Hadrian,  two  centuries  later,  as  one  of  the 


Ancient  Architraves,  Capitals,  and  Shafts  used  in  Reconstructing  S.  Lorenzo 

(Pelagius  II). 


largest  and  most  sumptuously  decorated  in  the  city.  Built 
doubtless  with  imperial  funds  and  before  the  Lombard  invasion, 
it  was  probably  the  work  of  Byzantine  engineers  and  artists 
from  Kavenna.  Perhaps  to  this  time  belong  some  of  the 
earliest  of  the  frescos  in  S.  Maria  Antiqua  and  S.  Saba. 

Pelagius  I  made  a  beginning  also  of  replacing  the  destroyed 
Church  treasures,  for  his  biographer  says  that  he  distributed 
to  all  the  churches  of  Rome  gold  and  silver  vases  and  vest- 
ments.    John's  zeal  was  concentrated  on  the  restoration  of'the 


ROME  AFTER  THE  GOTHIC  WARS 


87 


Catacombs,  where  some  of  the  early  Byzantine  frescos  may 
be  ascribed  to  him. 

Pelagius  II  (579-590)  fell  upon  even  more  evil  times, — when 
the  city  was  besieged  by  the  Lombards  and  abandoned  by  the 
Byzantine  Emperor  to  its  fate  ;  when  (589)  it  was  flooded  by 
the  Tiber  and  many  buildings  were  destroyed,  and  then  over- 


Chair  of  S.  Peter,  in  his  LUiiiliia,  made  partly  of  Antique  Materials  by  Artist 
of  Seventh  or  Eighth  Century. 


run  by  a  second  pestilence  (590)  by  which  the  Pope  himself 
was  carried  off. 

Perhaps  the  building  most  characteristic  of  these  conditions 
is  the  lower  and  smaller  basilica  of  S.  Lorenzo.  The  L.  P. 
says,  under  Pelagius,  that  he  built  a  basilica  over  the  saint's 
tomb.  As  one  had  already  been  built  by  Constantine  and 
renovated  by  Leopardus,  after  the  sack  of  Alaric,  it  is  clear 


88 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH 


that  the  work  of  Pelagius  must  have  been  required  by  the  de- 
struction of  the  older  church,  due  to  the  Goths.  Its  columns 
were  used  and  added  to,  and  a  gallery  was  erected  above  them, 
rising  from  a  mass  of  architraves  torn  from  ancient  buildings 
that  rested  on  the  larger  columns.  Evidently  there  were  no 
competent  stone  masons  in  Eome  at  this  time,  for  these  mag- 
nificent architraves  are  of  all  sizes  and  patterns  and  none  of 
them  match.  There  is  no  attempt  to  bring  them  into  any  sort 
of  artistic  relation.  It  is  the  acme  of  inartistic  disorder.  The 
Pope  seems  to  have  employed  stone  cutters  from  Ravenna  to 
decorate  the  second  story   (gallery),   for  the  basket  capitals 

and  the  parapet  slabs  are 
thoroughly  in  the  Byzan- 
tine manner  of  that  school 
and  of  Parenzo  and  other 
places  in  the  exarchate 
and  on  the  Adriatic  coast. 
To  this  Pope  is  attrib- 
uted a  basilica  at  the 
cemetery  of  S.  Hermes  of 
which  there  are  consider- 
able remains,  and  a  hos- 
pital for  the  poor.  He 
appears  to  have  had 
artists  capable  of  produc- 
ing bas-reliefs  in  silver  gilt  with  which  he  decorated  the  con- 
fessions of  the  basilicas  of  S.  Peter  and  S.  Lorenzo,  which 
had  doubtless  been  despoiled  of  their  earlier  and  more 
magnificent  monuments  of  this  sort. 

Gregory  the  Great  (590-604)  seems  to  have  cared  but  little 
for  monumental  art.  His  energies  were,  as  we  have  seen,  bent 
on  husbanding  the  scanty  resources  of  the  Church  for  more 
practical  and  more  vital  purposes.  He  is  credited  with  noth- 
ing more  than  a  silver  ciborium  with  its  columns  for  S.  Peter, 
doubtless  to  replace  the  one  destroyed  ;  with  some  decorations 
for  the  apostle's  tomb ;  with  the  transformation  of  his  ances- 
tral house  into  a  monastery ;  and  with  the  decoration  of  the 
church  of  S.  Agata  in  Suburra.     His  biographer  describes  some 


Classieo-Byzantiiie  Capital  at  S.   Agnese 
(Honorius  I). 


ROME  AFTER   THE  GOTHIC  WARS  89 

interesting  frescos  executed  in  the  monastery  in  the  lifetime 
of  S.  Gregory. 

Of  Sabinianus  (604—606)  nothing  is  recorded  except  some 
lamps  given  to  S.  Peter ;  of  Boniface  III  (607)  absolutely 
nothing;  of  Boniface  IV  (608-615),  in  whose  time  Rome 
went  through  a  terrible  experience  of  famine,  pestilence  and 
inundation,  it  is  said  that  he  turned  his  house  into  a  mon- 
astery and  obtained  from  the  Emperor  Phocas  the  permis- 
sion to  transform  the  great  rotunda  of  the  Pantheon  into 
a  church  dedicated  to  the  Virgin,  to  which  the  Emperor 
sent  many  rich  gifts.  Nothing  is  attributed  to  Deusdedit 
(615-618),  under  whom  the  popular  misery  continued.  Boni- 
face V  (619-625)  completed  a  small  rectangular  basilica  at 
the  entrance  to  the  catacomb  of  S.  Nicomedes  on  the  Via 
Nomentana. 

Honorius.  —  A  change  came  with  the  accession  of  Honorius 
I  (625-638),  a  fervent  lover  of  religious  art.  His  biographer  at- 
tributes to  him  the  construction  from  their  foundation  of  a  num- 
ber of  buildings,  the  majority  of  which  it  is  more  likely  that 
he  merely  restored  and  decorated,  so  that  he  should  be  credited 
rather  with  a  revival  of  painting  and  metal-work  than  with  that 
of  architecture,  though  his  constructions  also  show  good  taste. 
I  give  his  text  as  a  sample  of  the  extracts  from  the  Papal 
inventories  given  in  the  Liber  Pontificalis}     He  contributed  to 

1  Renovavit  omnemcymiliam  beati  Petri  apostoli  et  investivit  confessionem 
beati  Petri  ex  argento  puro,  qui  pens.  lib.  CLXXXVII.  Hie  investivit  regias 
in  ingressu  ecclesiae  maiores,  qui  appellatur  mediana,  ex  argento,  qui  pens.  lib. 
DCCCCLXXV ;  fecit  et  cereostatos  maiores  ex  argento,  paria  duo,  qui  sunt 
ante  corpus  beati  Petri  apostoli,  pens,  sing,  lib.  LXII.  Fecit  et  ad  beatum 
Andream  apostolum,  ubi  supra,  ante  confessionem,  tabula  ex  argento,  qui 
pens.  lib.  LXXIII.  Huius  temporibus  levatae  sunt  trabes  in  ecclesia  beati 
Petri  numero  XVI.  Hie  cooperuit  omnem  ecclesiam  eius  ex  tegulis  aereis 
quas  levavit  de  templo  qui  appellatur  Komae,  ex  concessu  piissimi  Heraclii 
imperatoris. 

Eodem  tempore  fecit  ecclesiam  beatae  Agne  martyris  ...  a  solo  .  .  . 
quern  undique  ornavit,  exquisivit,  ubi  posuit  dona  multa.  Ornavit  autem  se- 
pulcrum  eius  ex  argento,  qui  pens.  lib.  CCLH;  posuit  desuper  cyburium 
aereum  deauratum  mire  magnitudinis;  fecit  et  gavatas  aureas  III,  pens, 
sing.  lib.  sing. ;  fecit  abside  eiusdem  basilicae  ex  musibo,  ubi  etiam  et 
multa  dona  optulit.  Item  fecit  basilicam  beati. Apollenaris  ...  in  porticum 
beati   Petri  .  .  .  ad   Palmata,    a  solo,   ubi  dona    multa    largitus  est.  .  . 


90  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

the  ruin  of  the  beautiful  temple  of  Venus  and  Eome  bj  remov- 
ing its  bronze  tiles  and  using  them  for  his  new  roof  of  the 
Vatican  basilica.  The  masterpiece  of  his  time  is  thought 
to  be  the  basilica  of  S.  Agnese,  which  certainly  has  one 
of  the  most  delicate  and  well-proportioned  interiors  in  Kome, 
and  even  if  the  lower  part  of  the  nave  should  be  of  Con- 
stantinian  materials^  the  rest,  including  the  present  apse,  was 
put  together  and  decorated  by  Honorius,  including  the  apsidal 
mosaic.  Above  the  high  altar  he  placed  a  large  gilt-bronze 
ciborium.  The  SS.  Quattro  Coronati.  though  ruined  by  Guis- 
card's  fire  and  rebuilt  within  the  old  shell  on  a  smaller  scale, 
still  shows  its  original  size  and  impressiveness.  The  other 
churches  attributed  to  him  are:  S.  Apollinare,  near  S.  Peter; 
S.  Ciriaco  on  the  Via  Ostiensis ;  SS.  Marcellinus  and  Peter 
on  the  Via  Labicana ;  S.  Pancrazio  on  the  Via  Aurelia,  which 
he  decorated  with  a  silver  ciborium,  gold  candelabra  and 
many  other  precious  ornaments;  S.  Lucia  near  S.  Silvestro. 
It  was  also  he  who  turned  the  ancient  Curia  into  the  church 
of  S.  Adriano.  The  inlaid  doors,  confessions,  candelabra  and 
other  works  of  this  Pope  seem  to  show  the  presence  in  Rome 
of  skilful  metal-workers  and  mosaicists,  probably  from  the 
East  and  from  Ravenna. 

Fecit  ecclesiam  beato  Cyriaco  martyri  a  solo,  via  Ostiense,  miliario  VII,  ubi 
et  donum  optulit. 

Eodera  tempore  fecit  ecclesiam  beatorum  martyrum  QuattuorCoronatorum, 
quem  et  dedicavit  et  donum  optulit.  Fecit  ecclesiam  beato  Severino,  a  solo, 
iuxta  civitate  Tiburtina  .  . .  quam  ipse  dedicavit,  et  dona  multa  optulit.  Reno- 
vavit  et  cymiterium  beatorum  martyrum  Marcellini  et  Petri,  via  Lavicana. 
Eodem  tempore  fecit  basilicam  beato  Pancratio  martyri  via  Aurelia,  miliario 
secundo  a  solo  et  ornavit  sepulchrum  eius  ex  arj^ento,  qui  pens.  lib. 
CXX.  [Et  ibi  constituit  mola  in  murum  in  loco  Traiani  iuxta  murum 
civitatis,  et  formam  qui  deducit  aqua  in  lacum  Sabbatinum  et  sub  se  formara 
qui  conducit  aqua  Tyberis.]  Fecit  et  cyburium  super  altare  ex  argento,  qui 
pens.  lib.  CLXXXVII.  Fecit  arcos  argenteos  V,  qui  pens.  sing.  lib.  XV. 
Fecit  et  candelabra  aurea  III  qui  pens.  sing,  libras  sing.,  ubi  multa  dona 
simul  optulit. 

•  Fecit  ecclesia  beate  Lucise  in  urbe  Roma,  iuxta  sanctum  Silvestrum,  quem 
et  dedicavit,  et  dona  multa  optulit.  Fecit  ecclesiam  beati  Adriani  in  Tribus 
Fatis,  quem  et  dedicavit,  et  dona  multa  optulit.  [Fecit  autem  in  domum 
suam  iuxta  Lateranis  monasterium  in  honore  beatorum  apostolorura  Andrea 
et  Bartholomeo,  qui  appellatum  Honorii,  ubi  praedia  et  dona  simul  obtuiit.] 
Sed  et  multa  alia  fecit  quas  enumerare  longum  est.  '  ^ 


ROME  AFTER   THE  GOTHIC   WARS 


91 


Other  Popes  of  the  Seventh  Century.  —  Severinus  (640),  in 
his  one  year,  found  time  to  complete  the  restoration  of  S. 
Peter  by  renovating  the  mosaic  in  its  apse.  John  IV  (640-642) 
will  be  remembered  by  the  construction  of  a  chapel  annexed 


92  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

to  the  Lateran  baptistery  and  dedicated  to  S.  Venantius  and 
to  many  other  martyrs  whose  relics  were  brought  from  Dal- 
matia  and  Istria.  The  mosaic  in  the  apse  of  this  chapel 
is  one  of  the  best  preserved  in  Rome,  and  characteristic 
of  the  prevailing  Byzantinism. 

Under  Theodore  (642-649),  a  Greek  from  Jerusalem,  one 
of  the  earliest  recorded  transfers  of  relics  took  place.  The 
bodies  of  the  martyrs  Primus  and  Felicianus  were  taken 
from  their  tomb  on  the  Via  Nomentana  and  placed  in  the 
basilica  of  S.  Stefano  Rotondo,  where  the  Pope  .  decorated 
an  apse  with  a  mosaic  of  these  saints  and  where  he  added 
a  number  of  gifts.  He  completed  the  important  basilica  of 
S.  Valentinus,  begun  by  Honorius  near  Ponte  Molle,  and  built 
two  oratories,  one  to  S.  Euplus  outside  the  Ostian  gate  and 
one  to  S.  Sebastian  at  the  Lateran,  where  he  also  built  a  large 
reception  hall. 

To  the  heroic  martyr  and  Pope,  Martinus  (649-653),  who  suf- 
fered-severely  from  Byzantine  oppression,  was  violently  forced 
to  go  to  Constantinople  and  then  punished  by  exile  to  Cherson, 
the  Byzantine  Siberia,  no  works  of  art  are  credited  in  his.  life ; 
but  we  know  from  the  frescos  themselves  that  he  celebrated 
the  triumph  of  Orthodoxy  against  the  Monothelite  heresy  by  a 
series  of  frescos  at  S.  Maria  Antiqua,  which  he  remodelled  as 
a  Papal  chapel  and  decorated  after  the  Roman  synod  had  con- 
demned the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople  and  the  Eastern  sup- 
porters of  the  heresy.  The  Papal  painters  selected  the  figures 
of  a  series  of  Church  fathers  representing  Orthodoxy  in  two 
series  to  represent  the  East  and  the  West,  showing  no  desire 
to-break  with  the  Eastern  church,  but  to  purge  it. 

Nothing  is  attributed  to  his  successors,  Eugenius  (654-657) 
and  Vitalianus  (657-672),  but  under  the  latter  came  the  ruinous 
visit  to  Rome  of  Constans  II,  in  663,  the  first  visit  of  an  Em- 
peror since  the  extinction  of  the  Western  Empire  two  centuries 
before.  This  Emperor  came  not  to  give  but  to  take  away : 
as  an  enemy  of  the  Roman  Church  and  Latin  liberties.  He 
stole  the  gilt-bronze  tiles  that  covered  the  Pantheon,  though  it 
was  now  a  church,  and  packed  up  all  the  bronze  statues  remain- 
ing in  the  city  for  shipment  to  Constantinople.     Certainly  the 


ROME  AFTER   THE  GOTHIC   WARS  93 

city  must  have  looked  to  him,  used  to  the  orderly  cities  of  the 
East,  like  a  vast  cemetery. 

Adeodatus  (672-676),  though  aKoman  by  birth,  was  a  monk 
by  profession  and  a  Byzantine  by  education.  He  rebuilt,  en- 
larged with  many  new  buildings,  endowed  and  filled  with  Greek 
monks  the  monastery  of  S.  Erasmus  on  the  Coelian,  where  he 
had  himself  lived.  He  rebuilt  the  church  of  S.  Peter  in  the 
Gampo  di  Merlo,  about  seven  miles  on  the  Via  Portuensis.  It 
was  almost  Byzantine  in  the  squareness  of  its  plan  (25  m.  long, 
24  m.  wide),  though  it  had  the  basilical  columnar  nave  and 
aisles. 

Domnas  was  in  the  chair  hardly  more  than  a  year  (676-678), 
and  is  merely  said  to  have  paved  the  court  of  the  inner  atrium 
of  S.  Peter  with  marble  slabs  and  to  have  restored  and  dedi- 
cated both  the  church  of  the  Apostles  (Peter  and  Paul),  near 
S.    Sebastiano,  and  that  of  S.  Euphemia  on   the  Via  Appia. 

Under  Agatho  (678-681),  the  triumph  of  Roman  ecclesiastical 
supremacy  in  the  East  as  well  as  in  the  West,  and  the  final  de- 
feat of  Monothelitism,  was  more  than  counterbalanced  in  the 
city  by  the  fearful  pestilence  of  680.  Its  arrest,  at  the  sup- 
posed intercession  of  S.  Sebastian,  was  the  occasion  of  the  con- 
secration of  a  mosaic  figure  of  the  saint  in  the  church  of  S. 
Martino  ai  Monti,  where  it  now  exists. 

In  the  ten  months'  pontificate  of  the  Sicilian  Leo  II  (682-683), 
the  bodies  of  Simplicius,  Faustinus,  Beatrix  and  other  martyrs 
were  transferred  from  the  Catacomb  of  Commodilla  to  a  ch\irch 
which  the  Pope  built  and  dedicated  to  S.  Paul,  near  S.  Bibiana. 
It  seems  almost  certain  that  some  of  the  recently  discovered 
frescos  in  this  cemetery  were  then  painted  to  record  the  places 
where  the  saints'  bodies  had  rested,  while  others  were  of  earlier 
date.  A  marginal  addition  to  the  original  text  of  this  Pope's 
life  attributes  to  him  the  construction  of  S.  Giorgio  in  Velabro ; 
he  may  be  the  author  merely  of  a  restoration.  He  is  said  to 
have  dedicated  it  to  S.  Sebastian,  and  probably  it  was  a  thank- 
offering  for  the  saint's  help  at  the  time  of  the  pestilence  of 
680.  If  the  restoration  of  S.  Teodoro  is  also  by  him,  this  may 
be  the  date  of  the  mosaic  of  its  apse,  a  pale  adaptation  of  that 
of  SS.  Co'siTaa  e  Damiano. 


94  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

After  an  inexplicable  interregnum  of  about  a  year,  Pope 
Benedict  II  (684-685),  though  a  Koman,  intensified  the  close- 
ness of  the  relations  with  the  Eastern  Empire  by  becoming  god- 
father to  Constantine  Pogonatus's  two  sons.  The  Holy  See 
seems  now  to  be  in  somewhat  more  prosperous  condition.  The 
basilicas  of  S.  Peter  and  S.  Lorenzo  in  Lucina  were  restored. 
To  S.  Valentino,  S.  Maria  ad  Martyres  and  S.  Lorenzo,  the  Pope 
gave  superb  textile  altar  covers,  hangings  and  gold  chalices. 

Diaconal  Churches.  —  He  appears  to  have  organized  anew  the 
church  institutions  of  beneficence  called  diaconies.  They  had 
succeeded,  on  a  far  smaller  scale,  the  imperial  institutions  for 
the  distribution  of  free  supplies  of  corn  and  oil  to  the  poor  of 
Eome,  which  had  been  discontinued  by  the  Gothic  wars. 
Already  under  Gregory  the  Great  we  hear  of  the  church 
granaries  Qiorrea)  for  this  purpose.  In  the  time  of  Pope 
Benedict  II  those  charitable  establishments  were  in  charge  of 
special  monasteries  quite  distinct  from  the  ordinary  monas- 
teries attached  to  the  basilicas  for  song  and  service.  They 
were  placed,  necessarily,  in  the  heart  of  the  city,  and  prefer- 
ably near  the  Tiber.  That  of  S.  Maria  in  Cosmedin  was  on 
the  very  site  of  one  of  the  imperial  granaries.  The  large  and 
growing  estates  of  the  Church  furnished  the  stores,  and  the 
deacons  of  the  church  had  the  general  supervision,  while  the 
personnel  in  charge  of  the  details  of  the  work  consisted  —  in 
this  monastic  age  —  of  Greek  and  native  monks.  There  were, 
according  to  tradition,  seven  original  diaconies.  When,  a 
century  later,  Hadrian  I  became  Pope,  he  found  sixteen  of 
these  establishments,  and  he  about  doubled  this  number.  To 
each  of  them  a  church  was,  naturally,  attached ;  and  these  old 
structures  often  remain,  if  not  among  the  larger,  yet  among 
the  most  interesting  in  Rome.  Such  were  S.  Maria  Antiqua, 
S.  Maria  Rotonda  (Pantheon),  SS.  Cosma  e  Damiano,  S. 
Adriano,  S.  Giorgio  in  Valabro,  S.  Yitale,  S.  Bonifacio,  S. 
Maria  in  Domnica,  S.  Lucia  in  Septisolio,  SS.  Sergio  e  Bacco, 
S.  Maria  in  Cosmedin,  S.  Maria  in  Porticu,  S.  Nicolo  in  Car- 
cere,  S.  Angelo  in  Pescheria,  S.  Eustachio,  S.  Maria  in  Aquiro, 
S.   Maria  in  Via  Lata,  S.  Agata,  etc. 

One  peculiarity  is   that  they  were  usually  built   in  or   on 


ROME  AFTER   THE   GOTHIC   WARS  95 

ancient  temples  and  other  Roman  structures,  which  was  natu- 
rally the  case,  owing  to  their  position.  They  deserve  much 
more  careful  study  than  has  been  given  them. 

With  the  successor  of  Benedict  II  there  commences  a  long 
series  of  Greek  and  Oriental  Popes  who,  while  remaining  faith- 
ful to  Roman  ecclesiastical  traditions,  naturally  strengthened 
the  hold  of  Byzantine  art  upon  Rome.  Under  John  V  (685- 
686)  and  Canon  (686-687)  there  are  no  records  of  works  of  art, 
but  quite  a  number  under  Sergius  I  (687-701),  who  restored 
and  endowed  S.  Susanna,  S.  Euphemia  and  other  churches. 

The  Growth  and  Organization  of  People,  Army  and  Clergy.  —  It 
is  at  this  time  that  the  Papal  Chronicle  lays  increased  stress 
upon  the  division  of  the  Romans  into  three  classes — the 
clergy,  the  army  and  the  people.  The  steady  increase  of  the 
population  corresponded  to  a  more  thorough  organization. 

The  Roman  army  was  growing  into  an  important  factor; 
Rome's  new  population  was  not  effete  but  warlike.  Its  mili- 
tia was  nominally  under  command  of  the  Byzantine  dux  and 
his  subordinate  officers,  but  it  soon  outgrew  any  subserviency, 
and  represented  the  city  itself.  Its  leaders  actually  grew  into 
a  sort  of  primitive  feudal  lords.  Together  with  the  corre- 
sponding army  or  militia  of  Ravenna,  it  was  to  play  a  very  im- 
portant role  in  the  politics  of  the  next  two  centuries.  What- 
ever there  was  of  civil  rank  should  be  counted  in  the  same 
group  as  the  army,  in  the  way  of  imperial  functionaries  and 
men  of  family. 

The  clergy  also,  in  its  two  main  branches,  —  regular  or 
monastic,  and  secular  or  parish  and  Papal,  —  was  thoroughly 
organized,  and  formed  a  large  proportion  of  the  population. 

The  third  class,  the  people,  were  again  marshalled  into 
guilds  and  under  regions  or  rioni,  with  their  banners  and 
their  captains.  Their  organization  was  sufficiently  close  to 
include  scJiolce  or  meeting-houses  and  to  involve  common 
marching  and  singing  on  all  great  civil  and  religious  occasions. 
The  people  were  again  partitioning  out  the  city,  assigning 
streets  to  each  guild,  and  evolving  some  order  out  of  the 
chaos. 

In  so  far  as  art  is  concerned,  it  is  probable  that  during  these 


96  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

apparently  fallow  years  there  was,  in  any  case,  a  continued 
activity  of  the  fresco-painters,  probably  from  Ravenna,  who 
had  long  since  introduced  the  Byzantine  style  of  the  age  of 
Justinian  into  Eome  and  whose  school  continued  so  exactly  in 
the  same  traditions  that  the  S.  Luke  in  the  Catacomb  of  Com- 
modilla,  dated  from  the  reign  of  Constantine  Pogonatus,  can 
hardly  be  distinguished  from  frescos  and  mosaics  that  are 
over  a  century  earlier. 

How  in  these  years  of  which  we  know  so  little  there  had 
been  incubating  in  the  Italian  territories,  still  governed  nomi- 
nally by  Byzantium,  a  spirit  of  national  independence  and  a 
renewal  of  virility,  is  shown  by  the  defence  of  Pope  Sergius 
against  the  Emperor's  plot  by  the  armies  of  Ravenna  and  of 
the  Pentapolis  (Marches  of  Ancona). 

Architecturally,  nothing  is  recorded  of  Sergius  except  an 
oratory  to  S.  Andrew  on  the  Via  Labicana,  but  he  placed  in- 
numerable precious  objects  in  the  churches  and  was  the  author 
of  at  least  one  mosaic  —  that  of  the  apse  of  S.  Euphemia. 
Metal-work  was  extremely  popular,  but  not  entirely  to  the 
exclusion  of  work  in  marble,  as  is  shown  by  the  inscription 
describing  the  tomb  to  Leo  the  Great,  which  Sergius  erected 
in  S.  Peter.  Still,  gold  and  silver  work,  enamel  work  and 
precious  stones,  characterized  the  gifts  to  the  basilicas ;  they 
were  works  on  a  smaller  scale  and  with  greater  preciosity  of 
detail  than  the  ctboria,  tabernacles  and  sacred  vessels  of  the 
earlier  periods. 

John  VII.  —  The  Greek  series  was  continued  in  Popes  John 
VI  (701-705)  and  John  VII  (705-707),  Sisinnius  (708)  and 
Constantine  (708-715).  In  architecture  it  still  remained  the 
day  of  small  things ;  in  painting  there  was  continued  and  even 
increased  activity,  though  there  came  a  certain  decadence  in 
style,  and  a  loss  of  the  classic  beauty  of  the  school  of  Jus- 
tinian. The  two  most  famous  works  of  this  time  are  due  to 
John  VII ;  the  more  complete  decoration  in  fresco  and  restora- 
tion of  S.  Maria  Antiqua,  which  became  more  specifically  the 
Papal  chapel,  under  the  shadow  of  the  imperial  palace  on  the 
Palatine ;  and,  secondly,  the  chapel  of  the  Virgin,  or  of  Veron- 
ica, at  S.  Peter,  which   was  filled  with   mosaics   of   peculiar 


ROME  AFTER   THE  GOTHIC   WARS,  97 

originality.  On  the  other  hand,  a  centre  of  Lombard  influence 
was  established  at  the  very  gates  of  Rome,  in  the  monastery 
of  Farfa.  But,  though  governed  by  Lx)mbard  law,  it  undoubt- 
edly served  to  mediate  Roman  culture  and  art  to  the  still  bar- 
barous Lombards.  An  even  more  important  agent  for  the 
Roman  idea  outside  of  the  city  was  the  monastery  of  Subiaco 
which  John  VII  rebuilt  and  reorganized  as  a  Benedictine 
institution. 

To  Pope  Constantine  is  ascribed  the  restoration  of  S.  Croce 
in  Gerusalemme,  and  its  transformation  from  a  hall-church, 
which  was  substantially  the  unchanged  hall  of  a  Roman  pal- 
ace, into  a  typical  basilica,  by  the  addition  of  two  lines  of 
columns.  A  curious  controversy  now  centred  about  a  work 
of  art,  a  pS,inting  representing  the  different  Councils  of  the 
Church  set  up  in  S.  Peter.  Philippicus  Bardanes,  the  hereti- 
cal Emperor,  undertook  to  change  the  picture  in  a  Monothelite 
sense,  and  the  Roman  people  rose  in  revolt  and  refused  to 
accept  or  recognize  liis  title,  his  coinage,  his  decrees  or  his 
portrait.  They  set  up  the  orthodox  painting  of  the  synods 
in  opposition  to  the  imperial  will. 

The  father  of  John  VII  was  a  Greek  magnate,  of  the  name 
of  Plato,  who  held  the  Byzantine  office  of  Curator  of  the  im- 
perial palaces  in  Rome,  and  attended  to  their  repair  and  main- 
tenance. He  restored  its  main  stairway,  ascending  from  the 
Forum,  and  his  sepulchral  inscription  at  S.  Anastasia  is  one 
of  the  most  interesting  records  of  Byzantine  pseudo-adminis- 
tration. It  was  probably  the  fact  that  Plato  lived  on  the  Pala- 
tine which  induced  his  son,  on  becoming  Pope,  to  build  a  palace 
for  himself  on  the  edge  of  the  Palatine  near  S.  Maria  Antiqua, 
thus  temporarily  supplanting  the  Lateran  as  the  seat  of  the 
Papacy. 

Gregory  II  and  the  Iconoclasts.  —  Gregory  II  (715-731)  was 
the  lirst  Roman  Pope  after  this  series  of  Greeks,  and  reestab- 
lishes the  tradition  of  practical  territorial  extension.  For  some 
thirty  years  before  him,  it  is  true,  the  missionary  spirit  that 
had  led  Gregory  the  Great  to  send  missionaries  to  England 
had  borne  practical  fruit  in  the  establishment  and  strengthen- 
ing of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Church  and  in  the  coming  to  Rome 


98  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

itself  of  Anglo-Saxon  kings  and  princes  anxious  to  lay  them- 
selves and  their  treasures  at  the  feet  of  the  successors  of  S. 
Peter.  The  Anglo-Saxon  quarter,  with  its  hospice  and  its 
church,  was  established  near  the  Vatican  and  endowed  by 
King  Ina  in  728,  who  built  both  a  church  and  a  hospice. 
The  focussing  and  strengthening  of  these  Northern  energies 
by  Rome  just  before  and  after  700  resulted  in  the  great  mis- 
sion of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Boniface  to  the  wilds  of  Germany, 
there  to  organize  what  was  to  become  one  of  the  most  powerful 
branches  of  the  Western  Church.  He  was  sent  by  Gregory  II. 
Boniface  founded  Fulda,  which  became  the  greatest  centre  for 
theology  and  art  in  the  northeast  of  Europe.  This  Pope  re- 
stored several  churches,  such  as  S.  Agata,  and  decorated  with 
mosaics  an  oratory  in  the  Lateran. 

It  was  also  under  Gregory  II  that  the  greatest  crisis  in  the 
history  of  Christian  art  occurred.  The  declaration  of  war 
against  images  by  the  Emperor  Leo  the  Isaurian  was  formally 
issued  in  his  edict  of  726,  which  he  attempted  to  enforce  in 
Italy  as  well  as  throughout  the  East.  The  result  was  a  general 
insurrection  in  Italy  and  the  ending  of  all  Byzantine  authority 
in  Rome  with  the  slaying  of  the  last  imperial  duke.  The 
Emperor  had  threatened  to  have  his  emissaries  go  to  Rome  to 
destroy  the  famous  image  of  S.  Peter  in  his  basilica.  This 
has  been  erroneously  referred  to  as  the  bronze  statue,  which 
still  exists  there,  but  the  Pope's  letter  expressly  refers  to  it 
as  di  painting. 

The  ensuing  convulsion  —  the  only  revolution  which  ever 
raged  about  an  artistic  controversy  —  had  an  indelible  effect 
upon  art.  In  the  East  it  radically  stunted  realism  in  the  repre- 
sentation of  the  human  figure  in  religious  art.  In  Italy  it 
increased  the  strength  of  the  Greek  element  at  a  time 
when  Byzantine  art  was  entering  on  a  period  of  ebb-tide. 
The  danger  to  life  and  limb  for  the  practising  painter 
drove  a  multitude  of  them  to  Rome,  which  upheld  the  mission 
of  art,  and  this  not  only  filled  to  overflowing  the  Greek 
monasteries  already  established,  but  made  new  foundations 
necessary. 

After   having   thwarted   an   almost    successful   attempt'  of 


ROME  AFTER   THE   GOTHIC   WARS  99 

the  Lombard  king,  Liutprand,  to  conquer  Kome  and  make  of 
all  Italy  a  Lombard  kingdom,  Gregory  II  died  and  was  suc- 
ceeded by  a  Greek,  Gregory  III  (731-741),  who  showed  unusual 
activity  in  the  field  of  art.  He  commenced  by  causing  the 
Roman  synod  to  excommunicate  the  iconoclasts,  and  then  gave 
a  practical  illustration  of  his  belief  in  the  decoration  of  the 
Roman  basilicas.  He  supplemented  the  large  iconostasis  in 
S.  Peter  by  a  smaller  one,  consisting  of  six  onyx  columns 
supporting  an  architrave,  on  which  were  figures  in  silver  of 
Christ  and  the  Apostles. 

Among  his  works  were  the  basilica  of  S.  Maria  in  Aquiro, 
the  monastery  of  S.  Crisogono,  the  oratory  of  S.  Maria  de  can- 
cellis  at  S.  Peter.  He  undertook  a  complete  restoration  of 
the  city  walls  as  a  defence  against  the  Lombards. 

Zacharias  and  the  Lombard  Danger.  —  The  last  Greek  Pope, 
Zacharias  (741-752),  is  an  example  of  the  fact  that  even  in  the 
Benedictine  monasteries  at  Rome  (Lateran)  there  were  Greek 
monks.  He  also  gave  proof  of  the  most  extraordinary  politi- 
cal sagacity  and  magnetism  in  building  up  the  Roman  State 
and  protecting  the  Byzantine  provinces  at  the  expense  of  the 
Lombards,  and  takes  his  place  by  the  side  of  Leo  the  Great 
and  S.  Gregory.  In  his  time  the  third  great  monastery  in  the 
Roman  province  was  founded  (after  Subiaco  and  Farfa),  that 
of  S.  Silvestro  on  Mt.  Soracte,  where  Pope  Sylvester  is  said  by 
tradition  to  have  sought  refuge  in  an  early  persecution  be- 
fore Constantine's  miraculous  conversion  and  baptism.  It 
was  founded  by  a  royal  Prankish  convert  to  monasticism,  Carlo- 
man,  son  of  Charles  Martel. 

Under  Zacharias  the  Papal  Chronicle  records  the  lavish  use 
of  hangings  and  altar  covers  throughout  the  Roman  churches, 
and  enters  into  great  detail  as  to  their  manufacture  and  the 
subjects  represented  on  them.  These  details  are  evidently 
copied  textually  from  contemporary  inventories.  They  were 
probably  due  largely  to  the  skilled  monastic  workmen  from 
Cpnstantinople  and  Syria,  who  fled  to  Rome  from  the  per- 
secution of  Leo  the  Isaurian ;  perhaps  also  to  Greek  nuns,  such 
as  those  established  in  750  at  the  nunnery  of  S.  Maria  in 
Campo  Marzo. 


100  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

The  additions  which  Zacharias  made  to  the  Lateran  palace 
were  for  centuries  among  its  greatest  glories.  Partly  for 
defence,  partly  for  ornament,  he  constructed  a  monumental  ap- 
proach, guarded  by  a  tower,  beneath  which  was  a  broad  painted 
portico,  and  beyond  it  a  large  hall  or  throne-room  —  all  filled 
with  frescos,  harmonizing  with  the  world-wide  ambitions  and 
paternal  charity  of  the  Pope. 

S.  Maria  Antiqua  continued  to  furnish  records  of  the  pictorial 
activity  in  Eome,  in  both  new  and  restored  compositions. 

The  five  years  of  Stephen  II  (752-757)  were  busy  with  the 
momentous  political  issues  raised  by  the  final  success  of  the 
Lombards  under  Astolf  in  conquering  Ravenna  and  putting  an 
end  to  Byzantine  dominion  in  Northern  and  Central  Italy.  The 
next  logical  step  was  their  conquest  of  Rome,  and  it  was  to  avoid 
this  that  the  alliance  between  Stephen  and  King  Pipin  the 
Frank  was  established,  which  was  to  develop  the  Western  Carlo- 
vingian  Empire  and  the  Papal  temporal  power,  raising  all  those 
questions  of  the  relations  between  the  spiritual  and  temporal 
spheres  which  had  remained  largely  in  the  background  as  long 
as  the  temporal  overlord  was  the  distant  and  powerless  Byzan- 
tine Emperor. 

Still,  the  Pope  found  time  for  the  erection  of  some  monu- 
ments. He  will  always  be  associated  with  the  earliest  known 
bell-tower  or  campanile  in  Rome,  which  he  built  in  front  of 
S.  Peter,  on  the  right  side  of  the  atrium.  He  also  added 
considerably  to  the  buildings  around  S.  Peter,  such  as  the 
monastery  of  S.  Thecla  —  making  the  fourth  of  the  Vatican 
monasteries ;  he  redecorated  the  rotunda  at  S.  Petronilla, 
transforming  it  from  a  mausoleum  of  the  dynasty  of  Theodoric 
into  one  of  the  new  Frankish  dynasty  of  Pipin.  Stephen  also 
restored  the  basilica  of  S.  Lorenzo,  after  the  Lombard  ravages, 
and  built  several  xenodocliia  or  hospices  for  pilgrims. 

Destruction  of  the  Catacombs.  —  We  must  here  note  a  momen- 
tous and  irretrievable  loss  to  art  in  consequence  of  Astolf's  long 
siege  of  Rome  in  756.  Though  the  Lombards  did  not  capture 
Rome,  they  completely  devastated  its  neighborhood,  including 
all  the  suburban  churches  and  monasteries  except  the  apostolic 
basilicas  of  S.  Peter  and  S.  Paul     In  this  way  all  that  had 


ROME  AFTER   THE  GOTHIC  WARS  101 

been  done  for  over  a  century,  since  the  days  of  Honorius  I,  to 
bring  back  prosperity  to  the  Campagna,  was  obliterated,  includ- 
ing the  recently  founded  colonies  of  Zacharias.  The  keenest 
blow  was,  perhaps,  the  violation  of  the  Catacombs,  the  spoiling 
of  their  tombs  and  the  destruction  of  their  churches  and  ora- 
tories. Still,  an  impetus  was  given  to  church-building  and 
decoration  within  the  city  by  the  wholesale  transfer  of  relics 
from  the  Catacombs  by  Pope  Paul,  after  the  Lombards  had 
shown  their  disregard  for  their  sanctity  in  the  time  of  Astolf's 
siege. 

Paul  I.  —  With  Paul  I  (757-767)  the  political  relations  with 
Byzantium  were  definitely  severed.  This  had  perhaps  an  effect 
on  Roman  art  —  or  rather  on  Roman  painting  —  in  that  it 
stopped  the  influx  of  Greeks  to  Rome  and  turned  the  Roman 
school  into  a  local  institution  trained  by  Greek  teachers,  but 
consisting  more  and  more  of  native  practitioners.  This  is 
illustrated  by  the  series  of  frescos  in  the  apse,  chapels  and 
presbytery  of  S.  Maria  Antiqua,  with  which  the  painters 
of  the  time  of  Paul  I  seem  to  have  overlaid  the  series  of 
John  VII. 

His  brother,  Pope  Stephen,  had  founded  a  monastery  in  his 
own  house  to  SS.  Stephen  and  Sylvester,  which  became  the 
famous  S.  Silvestro  in  Capite.  It  was  completed  by  Paul  I  and 
given  to  Greek  monks.  Its  mosaics  and  frescos,  its  rich  gifts 
and  large  possessions,  placed  it  at  once  among  the  mOfet  impor- 
tant Roman  monmnents. 

Stephen  III  (768-772)  came  to  the  throne  in  the  midst  of 
atrocious  scenes  of  confusion,  barbarism  and  murder.  The  dan- 
ger from  the  Lombards  continued  ;  the  help  of  Pipin  and  his 
Franks  had  been  desultory  and  ineffective  ;  the  disorders  at  the 
Papal  election  necessitated  changes  in  its  method,  including 
the  exclusion  of  the  laity  from  participation.  Among  the  few 
architectural  works  of  his  time  was  the  reconstruction  of  the 
diaconal  church  of  S.  Angelo  in  Pescheria  by  Theodotus,  uncle 
of  the  coming  Pope  Hadrian,  who  had  already  decorated  S. 
Maria  Antiqua. 

We  now  reach  the  time  when  Rome  is  to  meet  new  issues,  and 
to  be  pitted  against  the  Northern  races  instead  of  against  the 


102  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

East  in  questions  of  religious  and  artistic  supremacy  as  well  as 
in  politics  and  diplomacy.  Will  she  bring  these  new  races 
within  her  orbit  ?  Will  she  show  the  elasticity,  fertility  of 
resource  and  psychological  insight  required  to  understand  and 
dominate  these  formidable  factors  ? 


K 


V.    THE   CARLOVINGIAN    CITY   AND   THE   DARK 

AGE 

Hadrian,  Temporal   Power   and  the  Western  Empire.  —  Pope 

Hadrian  I  (772-795)  marks  a  new  era,  through  the  new  church 
policy  which  he  developed  and  which  resulted  in  the  establish- 
ment of  the  patrimony  of  the  states  of  the  Church,  in  the  alliance 
with  Charlemagne  and  the  foundation  by  Papal  initiative  of  the 
new  Prankish  Empire  of  the  West.  The  Lombard  kingdom, 
always  a  menace  at  the  door  of  Rome,  was  destroyed;  the  dan- 
gers of  the  overlordship  of  Byzantium,  fatal  to  the  life  and 
honor  of  more  than  one  Pope,  were  abolished.  The  territorial 
influence  of  the  Papacy  in  Italy,  its  material  wealth  and  oppor- 
tunities, backed  by  the  resources  of  the  new  Empire,  were  im- 
mensely increased.  New  fields  of  missionary  work  in  Northern 
and  Eastern  Europe  were  opened  up,  and  the  episcopal  and  mo- 
nastic hierarchies,  largely  on  the  increase,  were  brought  into 
closer  connection  with  Rome.  In  music,  literature,  liturgy,  art, 
the  Roman  school  found  itself  called  upon  to  plough  in  virgin, 
or  semi-fertilized  fields,  and  this  acted  as  a  stimulus  on  Rome 
itself,  which  entered  upon  almost  a  century  of  extremely  active 
production,  though  of  diminishing  artistic  skill. 

Under  this  stimulus,  art  became  more  national.  AVhile  the 
Byzantine  element  was  still  strong,  a  much  smaller  percentage 
of  actual  production  can  be  credited  to  Greek  hands,  and  more 
to  Romans,  who  still  felt  the  spell  of  their  antique  traditions. 

Restoration  of  Monuments.  —  The  twenty-four  years  of  the 
pontificate  of  Hadrian  were  artistically  the  most  fruitful  since 
the  fourth  century.  He  was  the  greatest  restorer  and  lover  of 
Early  Christian  Rome  since  Pope  Damasus,  and  he  accom- 
plished a  more  extensive  work  than  Damasus,  for  he  had  far 
deeper  wounds  to  heal,  a  far  longer  stretch  of  centuries  to  re- 
construct.    He  was  a  man  intensely  of  his  age,  so  that  we 

103 


104 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH 


must  not  expect  of  him  the  work  of  an  archaeologist  seeking  to 
give  back  the  exact  physiognomy  of  the  past.  With  the  artists 
at  his  command,  quite  alien  to  the  earliest  stage  of  Christian 
art,  such  an  attempt,  had  it  been  made,  would  have  been  an 
impossible  feat. 

But  Hadrian  was,  at  all  events,  a  thorough  master  of  the  ar- 
tistic traditions  and  history  of  Eome,  and  a  thorough  believer 
in  the  great  mission  of  art.  He  showed  it  in  his  defence  of  the 
use  of  images,  in  his  vindication  of  the  right  of  the  Church  to 


Icoiiostiisis  Clioir-siTcni  df  S.  Maria  in  ( "osiiie  iiii,  i-cstoi 
Marble  Decoration  of  Age  of  Hadrian  1. 

teach  the  truth  through  art.  His  famous  letter  to  Charlemagne 
gives  a  list  of  the  principal  mosaics  and  frescos  placed  by  the 
Popes  in  Roman  churches  from  the  time  of  Constantine  and 
Sylvester. 

Hadrian's  work  was  not  confined  to  any  one  part  of  the  city 
or  any  one  class  of  monument.  He  restored  the  aqueducts, 
strengthened  and  rebuilt  the  city  walls  and  towers ;  was  impar- 
tial in  the  restoration  of  churches  and  monasteries  both  within 
and  without  the  walls.  -  .  y 


THE  CARLOVINGIAN  CITY  AND   THE  DARK  AGE    105 

It  was  largely  through  the  financial  aid  of  Charlemagne  that 
Hadrian  must  have  been  able  to  spend  such  enormous  sums  in 
Rome.  The  imperial  cooperation  is  attested,  somewhat  later, 
for  instance,  in  the  church  of  S.  Susanna,  where  Hadrian's 
successor,  Leo  III,  is  represented  in  the  apse  mosaic  on  one  side 
and  Charlemagne  on  the  other.  Immense  crowds  of  laborers 
were  called  in  from  every  part  of  the  Roman  province  for  work 
on  the  walls  and  the  aqueducts,  of  which  the  four  restored 
were  the  Traiana,  Claudia,  Jovia  and  Virgo.  Equally  exten- 
sive and  carried  out  largely  by  the  help  of  the  same  unskilled 
labor  was  the  restoration  of  the  many  miles  of  colonnaded 
streets  that  connected  the  city  proper  with  the  settlements  that 
had  grown  about  the  great  suburban  shrines  —  S.  Peter,  S. 
Paul  and  S.  Lorenzo.  The  chronicler  reports  that  twelve 
thousand  blocks  of  stone  were  used  in  the  foundations  alone 
of  the  colonnades ,  to  S.  Peter. 

The  principal  architect  of  Hadrian  waa_jlajiuariu&j^nd  prob- 
ably to  him  is  due  the  work  at  S.  Maria  in  Cosmedin,  which  in- 
cluded the  dangerous  engineering  feat  of  tearing  down  an 
immense  ancient  ruin  before  extending  the  church.  The  triple 
apse  which  Hadrian  added  to  the  church  is  the  earliest  depar- 
ture in  Rome  from  the  single  apse  termination,  and  was  not 
popular.  It  is  probable  that  the  Greek  frescos  recently  un- 
covered are  of  his  time.  The  church  itself  was  not  fundamen- 
tally modified  in  the  twelfth  century,  except  for  the  changes 
required  by  the  closing  of  its  galleries.  f  /  ^-  ' 

The  Liher  Fontijicalis  allows  us  to  follow  the  trace  of  his 
healing  hand  among  the  Catacombs  and  the  early  ceraeterial 
basilicas  that  encircled  tKe^Tty,  restoring,  rebuilding,  redeco- 
rating, effacing  the  ravages  of  time  and  of  the  Goths  and 
Lombards.  On  the  Via  Portuensis  the  large  basilica  of  Abdon 
and  Sennen,  and  those  of  Candida  and  Felix  ;  on  the  Aurelia, 
those  of  S.  Pancratius  and  S.  Victor,  etc.  j 

Among  the  monasteries  he  restored  was  that  of  SS.  Vincenzo"^^'^ 
ed  Anastasio  at  the  Tre  Fontane.     He  found  it  in  a  state  of 
decay  and  rebuilt  from  the  foundations  the  basilica,  baptistery, 
monastic  structures  and  annexes,  decorating  them  with  frescos, 
of  which  faint  remnants  appear  in  the  ancient  gateway,  while 


106  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

the  decadent  masonry  of  this  age  is  still  seen  in  parts  of  church 
and  monastery. 

Leo  III  (795-816)  had  an  even  greater  political  genius  than 
Hadrian ;  it  was  more  concrete.  The  imperial  support  was 
pledged  to  him  even  more  thoroughly.  He  continued  the  work 
of  restoring  the  basilicas  and  monasteries  of  Kome.  While 
Hadrian  had  extended  his  activity  to  the  Catacombs  and  ceme- 
terial  basilicas,  Leo  III  went  further  and  restored  the  churches 
of  neighboring  towns,  especially  those  in  the  Alban  Hills  and 
on  the  coast  line  —  Palestrina  and  Velletri,  Ostia,  etc.  He  con- 
tinued to  improve  the  two  greatest  groups  of  Papal  buildings, 
adding  a  triclinium  or  throne  room,  and  a  chapel  to  the  Lateran ; 
a  triclinium,  a  palace  and  a  hospice  for  pilgrims  at  S.  Peter. 

Marble  Decoration.  —  In  decoration  the  eighth  century  was 
in  some  ways  a  turning-point.  Until  then  the  precious  metals 
and  bronze  had  had  all  the  honors,  but  since  the  previous 
two  centuries  marble  had  begun  to  compete,  particularly  in 
such  classes  as  choir-screens  and  parapets.  Under  Leo  III 
this  tendency  became  quite  general,  coinciding  with  the  develop- 
ment of  the  decorative  designs  in  low  relief,  elsewhere  de- 
scribed. When  we  reach  the  reign  of  Paschal  I  (817-824),  it 
is  evident,  from  the  Liher  Pontificalis,  that  the  art  of  casting 
and  hammering  metal  was  a  thing  of  the  past,  and  that  marble 
had  definitely  taken  possession  of  the  fields  of  altar-ciboria 
and  altar-fronts,  pulpits  and  candelabra,  confessions  and  their 
varied  forms  of  decoration  and  accessories.  Leo  III  still  had 
paschal  candlesticks  made  of  silver.  Leo  IV  ordered  a  marble 
ciborium.  This  style  of  design  was  to  rule  in  art  until  the 
beginning  of  the  twelfth  century  in  Rome  and  a  large  part  of 
Italy.  It  was  based  largely  on  classic  patterns,  as  we  shall 
see,  handled  in  a  way  foreshadowed  by  some  Byzantine  work 
of  the  sixth  century.  The  effect  is  partly  due  to  the  shallow 
and  unskilful  style  of  marble  cutting,  and  is  the  least  artistic 
of  all  mediaeval  styles  of  ornament  except  certain  forms  of 
Anglo-Saxon  and  Lombard  animal  creations. 

Not  entirely  without  influence  on  this  universal  use  of  the 
same  ornamental  system  may  have  been  the  fact  that  in  con- 
sequence of  the  donations  of  Pipin  and  Charlemagne,  between 


THE  CARLOVINGIAN  CITY  AND   THE  DARK   AGE     107 

754  and  784  a  large  part  of  Italy,  especially  in  the  eastern 
and  central  sections,  was  handed  over  to  the  Popes  as  a  terri- 
torial possession.  In  most  of  the  cities  of  Emilia  and  the  Pen- 
tapolis,  the  chiefs  of  the  civil  and  military  administration  were 
sent  from  Rome.  The  Pope's  permission  was  asked  by  Charle- 
magne, even,  when  he  wished  to  dismantle  the  palace  of  Theo- 
doric  at  Eavenna  to  use  its  material  in  the  construction  and 
decoration  of  his  imperial  church  at  Aix-la-Chapelle.  It  is  in 
this  region,  including  Bologna  and  Ravenna  and  their  subordi- 
nate cities,  far  more  than  in  Lombardy  that  we  find  this  orna- 
mentation in  use,  and  we  are  forced  to  attribute  its  origin  to 
either  Byzantium  or  Rome. 

Finding  it  in  Byzantine  Greece,  in  Byzantine  Egypt,  in 
Dalmatia  and  in  other  parts  of  the  Eastern  Empire,  it  seems 
natural  to  conclude  that  it  came  straight  to  Rome  from  the 
East  and  thence  spread  over  the  parts  of  Italy  most  subject  to 
Roman  influence. 

It  has  been  quite  commonly  said  of  late  that  the  new 
and  strong  Carlovingian  culture  of  the  North  revivified  effete 
Rome ;  that  it  was  inspired  in  part  directly  from  Byzantium, 
through  Marseilles.  This  contention  is  on  its  face  illogical 
and  strained.  The  great  and  only  sources  of  Carlovingian  cul- 
ture, besides  the  small  imperial  school,  were  the  large  monas- 
teries. I  will  select  two  of  the  most  important  and  early  of 
these  northern  monasteries  —  Centula  and  Fontanella.  An 
examination  of  the  original  documents  illustrating  their  early 
history  shows  that  at  Fontanella  (S.  Wandrille)  the  best  models 
for  the  manuscripts  in  its  superb  library  either  came  from 
Rome  or  were  written  and  illuminated  in  the  Roman  style. 
Codexes  written  romana  litera  are  twice  mentioned  in  the 
eighth  century.  Of  a  gospel  codex  it  is  said:  codicem  ilium 
evangelicum  ut  scriptura  eius  insinerat  in  Romulea  urbe  scrij^tum 
constat  (Chron.  Fontan.).  One  of  its  most  famous  monks,  Harduin 
(811),  went  to  Rome  and  wrote  a  manuscript  of  the  gospels 
romana  litera,  probably  also  teaching  it  to  his  fellow-monks, 
for  we  find  that  the  great  Abbot  Ansegisius  ordered  one  of 
those  superb  manuscripts  in  purple  and  gold  to  be  executed 
romana  litera j  of  which  only  three  of  the  four  gospels  were 


108 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH 


finished.  The  same  Eoman  origin  is  attributed  to  several  of 
the  finest  textiles  in  these  monastic  sacristies.  That  Eome 
was  and  had  been  for  over  a  century  a  great  centre  for  the 
manufacture  of  sacred  textiles,  hangings,  altar-fronts  and 
vestments,  covered  with  religious  themes,  is  shown  by  the 
Papal  Chronicle.  The  church  music  of  both  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  and  the  Frankish  churches  of  Pipin  and  Charlemagne 
was  of  Roman  origin  and  taught  by  Roman  masters.  If  these 
great  Carlovingian  monasteries  were  then  free  to  acknowledge 

their  debt  to  Rome, 
why  should  we,  at 
this  distance  of  time, 
pretend  to  dispute  it  ? 
Paschal  I  (817-824) 
was  almost  as  active 
artistically  as  his  two 
more  glorious  prede- 
cessors, though  his 
artists  were  inferior 
to  theirs.  He  patron- 
ized both  the  native 
and  the  Byzantine 
types  of  art  in  mosaic, 
painting  and  textiles. 
As  he  increased  the 
number  of  Greek 
monasteries,  it  is  evi- 
dent that  he  did 
everything  to  encour- 
age the  production  of 
works  of  art  in  these  establishments,  so  that  we  may  conclude 
that  until  the  very  downfall  of  art,  toward  the  close  of  the 
ninth  century,  the  Roman  churches  were  supplied  with  these 
products  of  their  native  looms  and  needles  after  the  time- 
honored  Byzantine  models  (cf.  p.  380). 

The  most  important  work  of  Paschal  has  always  been  con- 
sidered to  be  S.  Prassede.  An  amusing  error  has  attributed 
to  his  age  the  great  transverse  arches  of  the  interior,  instead  of 


Dalmatic  of  "  Charlemagne  "  at  S.  Peter. 
Example  of  Byzantine  models  for  Roman  textile-makers. 


THE  CARLOVINGIAN  CITY  AND  THE  DARK  AGE    109 

to  the  restorations  of  the  late  Eenaissance.  Also  the  colon- 
nade, aside  from  these  transverse  arches  and  their  piers,  has 
little  to  do  with  the  age  of  Pope  Paschal,  perhaps  put  together 
out  of  fourth-century  material  at  some  period  after  the  Gothic 
wars,  and  merely  remodelled  by  him.  This  church  was  deco- 
rated, however,  by  Paschal  with  mosaics,  and  received  also 
the  addition  of  the  chapel  of  S.  Zeno.  We  are  reminded  in 
these  colonnades  of  the  hasty  methods  of  Pelagius  at  S. 
Lorenzo,  while  the  mosaics  are  a  travesty,  rich  but  lifeless,  of 
the  purer  Greek  works  of  Leo  III. 

S.  Maria  in  Domnica  is  the  only  building  of  Pope  Paschal  I 
which  clearly  shows  the  handiwork  of  his  workmen  in  the 
treatment  of  capitals.  In  fact  its  series  of  capitals  is  the  most 
interesting  in  Rome  for  the  Carlovingian  period.  At  the  same 
time  one  must  be  careful  to  distinguish  between  Paschal's 
capitals  and  those  of  the  earlier  church  which  he  restored. 
The  Liber  PontificaUs  says  that  Paschal  rebuilt,  enlarged  and 
decorated  a  church  which  was  here  olim  constructa.  The  in- 
scription under  the  mosaic  in  the  apse  begins  also  :  ista  domus 
pridein  fuerat  confracta  ridnis  nunc  rutilat  .  .  .  metallis. 

In  the  restoration  or  reconstruction  the  old  columns  and 
some  of  the  former  capitals  were  used.  These  are  of  a  design 
very  similar  to  that  of  the  capitals  at  S.  Martino  ai  Monti  and 
probably  also  belong  to  the  age  of  King  Theodoric. 

Gradual  Artistic  Decay.  —  Notwithstanding  the  wealth  lav- 
ished on  art  by  these  three  Popes,  Hadrian,  Leo  and  Paschal, 
it  must  be  confessed  that  the  results  were  not  correspondingly 
important.  It  was  a  fictitious  revival,  due  to  a  material  pros- 
perity, which  multiplied  the  mediocre  products  of  a  decaying 
art.  Not  a  single  laasilica  of  artistic  beauty  or  of  imposing 
dimensions  belongs  to  this  age,  which  was  one  of  greater 
luxury  than  taste  and  skill.  The  ever  decreasing  strength  of 
the  Byzantine  element  weakened  the  Roman  school  and  left  it 
represented  by  third-rate  practitioners. 

Under  Gregory  IV  (827-844)  the  abyss  of  ineptitude,  into 
which  art  and  culture  had  been  gradually  sinking  during  half 
a  century,  is  exemplified  by  the  mosaic  in  the  apse  of  S.  Marco, 
with  its  bloodless  and  vapid  silhouettes  of  meagre  and  lifeless 


no  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

puppets,  the  perpetrator  of  which  —  we  cannot  call  him  artist 
—  succeeded,  as  a  French  critic  has  keenly  said,  in  showing 
himself  an  innovator  in  the  science  of  petrifaction.  Frag- 
ments of  the  sculptured  decoration  of  pulpits,  choir-screens 
and  ciboria,  scattered  in  Roman  churches,  show  the  same 
inanity  in  decorative  sculpture. 

It  is  well  that  Rome  should  allow  'dead  silence  to  brood 
henceforth  over  its  churches  and  its  streets  and  should  wait 
for  nearly  two  centuries  for  a  new  dawn  in  the  field  of  art. 

This  silence  could  not,  of  course,  be  absolute  ;  yet  it  was 
almost  so.  And  by  a  curious  fatality  hardly  one  of  the  few 
monuments  of  this  period  remains  to  contradict  the  sentence 
of  decadence.  Stephen  V  (885-891)  rebuilt  the  basilica  of 
the  Apostles;  Formosus  (891-896)  restored  and  filled  with 
frescos  the  basilica  of  S.  Peter;  Sergius  III  (904-911)  rebuilt 
from  its  foundations  the  Lateran  basilica.  We  are  also  told 
that  the  famous  and  infamous  men  and  women  of  the  house  of 
Alberic,  Marozia  and  their  brood  were  prominent  benefactors 
of  churches  and  monasteries. 

There  were,  however,  some  fine  works  of  military  engineer- 
ing. One  of  the  last  great  enterprises  of  the  Carlovingian 
Papacy  was  the  construction  and  fortification  of  the  Leonine 
City,  the  new  quarter  (Borgo)  across  the  Tiber,  between  Hadri- 
an's mausoleum  and  S.  Peter.  This  had  been  for  some  time 
needed  in  order  to  prevent  any  repetition  of  the  pillaging  of 
the  basilica,  such  as  had  happened  not  long  before.  Pope 
Leo  IV  wrote  in  848  to  the  Emperor  Lothair  that  he  wished 
for  his  help  and  advice  in  the  construction  of  this  city  which 
had  not  only  been  planned,  but  begun  by  his  predecessor  Leo 
III.  The  Emperor  immediately  sent  a  liberal  sum  and  the 
new  suburb  was  dedicated  June  27,  852.  The  engineer  who 
planned  and  built  the  fortifications  was  Agatho,  presumably 
a  Greek  versed  in  the  advanced  methods  of  Byzantine  mili- 
tary science. 

Political  Decay  and  Poverty.  —  The  disintegration  of  the  Car- 
lovingian dynasty  had  brought  back  the  old  political  chaos,  gen- 
eral insecurity  and  impoverishment.  The  climax  of  Rome's  sad 
plight  was  reached  under  Pope  John  VIII  (872-882).     In  ar  let- 


THE  CARLOVINGIAN  CITY  AND  THE  DARK  AGE      HI 

ter  to  the  Emperor  Charles  the  Bald  in  877  he  paints  the  situa- 
tion and  urgently  asks  for  help  :  ''  for  the  (Roman)  Campagna  is 
entirely  depopulated ;  we  have  nothing,  nor  does  there  remain 
anything  wherewithal  either  we,  or  the  venerable  monasteries 
and  other  sacred  places,  or  the  Roman  Senate,  can  find  bodily 
sustenance.  All  the  suburban  district  of  Rome  has  been  so 
pillaged  that  it  no  longer  seems  to  contain  a  single  inhabitant." 

When  the  bare  necessities  of  life  were  lacking,  the  arts 
could  not  flourish.  The  same  Pope  John  VIII  wrote  to  King 
Louis  of  Germany  to  send  him  an  organ  with  a  skilled  artist 
(artifex)  to  work  it  and  to  give  instruction  in  it.  We  are  far 
indeed  from  the  time,  a  century  before,  when  Rome  gave  reli- 
gious music  to  the  national  churches  of  the  North ! 

Still,  the  very  year  of  the  Pope's  letter  to  Charles  the  Bald 
(877)  there  happened  the  famous  battle  of  Cape  Circeii  in 
which  the  Papal  militia  and  the  imperial  troops  saved  Rome 
from  capture  by  the  Saracen  invaders,  who  completed  the  de- 
struction of  whatever  had  been  left  about  Rome  by  the  Lom- 
bard raiders  of  the  two  previous  centuries.  It  was  probably 
with  the  financial  help  of  Charles  the  Bald  that  the  Pope 
did  on  a  smaller  scale  for  the  basilica  of  S.  Paul  outside  the 
walls  what  Leo  IV  had  done  for  the  protection  of  S.  Peter. 
He  surrounded  with  a  circuit  of  walls,  with  battlements  and 
towers,  the  basilica  and  the  suburb  that  had  grown  up 
around  it,  calling .  the  new  annex  to  Rome  by  his  own  name, 
Johannipolis. 

Then  was  inaugurated  the  era  of  fortification  that  was  to 
characterize  the  rest  of  the  Middle  Ages  in  Rome  and  its 
province. 

The  material  and  artistic  prosperity,  so  rapidly  on  the  wane, 
was  destroyed  by  the  final  success  of  the  Saracen  raids  in 
the  latter  part  of  the  ninth  century.  For  some  thirty  years, 
until  their  final  defeat  in  916  by  John  X,  these  Mohammedan 
invaders  —  northernmost  representatives  of  the  conquerors  of 
Sicily  —  had  terrorized  the  entire  territory  about  Rome,  burn- 
ing the  principal  monasteries  such  as  Parfa,  Subiaco,  S.  Elia, 
Cassino,  Soracte. 

In   this    general   devastation   the   domus  cultce,  the  colony 


112 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH 


farms  established  "by  the  Popes,  had  also  disappeared,  and  all 
villages  in  the  i)lains  had  been  abandoned  for  new  fortified 
towns  on  rocky  hills.  This  cut  off  a  large  source  of  revenue 
for  the  maintenance,  restoration  and  decoration  of  the  churches 
in  Rome  itself. 

Nothing  better  shows  the  completeness  of  the  decadence  than 
the  fact  that  when  the  greatest  of  all  basilicas,  the  Lateran,  had 


Interior  of  Basilica  of  S.  Elia,  near  Nepi. 

(Tenth  century.) 


fallen  in  897  from  old  age  and  decay,  it  was  allowed  to  lie,  a 
shapeless  mass  of  ruins,  for  seven  years,  though  it  was  the 
cathedral  church  of  the  Papacy.  When  Sergius  III  (904-911) 
and  John  X  (914-928)  began  and  completed  the  reconstruction, 
it  was,  however,  on  a  large  scale,  and  the  interior  was  covered 
with  mosaics  and  frescos. 

Some  of  the  monasteries  ruined  by  the  Saracens  were  rebuilt. 
One  of  these,  S.  Elia  near  Nepi,  was  given  in  939  to  Abbot  Odo, 


THE  CARLOVINGIAN  CITY  AND   THE   DARK  AGE      113 

famous  head  of  the  Benedictine  order  of  Cluny,  then  the  fore- 
most monastic  body  in  the  world,  and  the  present  church  with 
its  frescos,  appears  to  date  from  the  reconstruction  that  shortly 
followed.  It  is  almost  unique  as  dating  from  an  age  that 
produced  so  little  and  that  little  so  poorly  calculated  to  endure. 

Still,  it  must  be  confessed  that  there  was  a  certain  vigorous 
recrudescence  among  the  monasteries,  even  though  art  flourished 
but  little  in  Papal  circles.  A  passage  in  the  interesting  contem- 
porary chronicle  of  Benedict  of  Mt.  Soracte  is  very  suggestive. 
He  says  :  "  The  glorious  prince  Alberic  .  .  .  built  the  monastery 
of  S.  Lorenzo  in  Agro  Verano  and  that  of  S.  Paul  (both  in  Rome), 
and  restored  to  the  monasteries  the  property  that  had  been 
taken  from  them  by  evil  men.  He  heard  of  the  desolate  con- 
dition of  the  monasteries  of  S.  Andrea  (in  Plumine,  near  Soracte) 
and  of  S.  Silvestro  on  Mt.  Soracte,  which  had  been  captured, 
by  the  Saracens,  etc."  Alberic  then  restored  them  under  the 
direction  of  Abbot  Leo  and  gave  them  property  and  gifts.  At 
S.  Andrea  were  then  built  three  towers  to  defend  the  gate  of 
the  monastery  and  a  castle  on  each  side  of  it,  and  later  a  church, 
which  is  probably  the  one  still  existing,  with  frescos  so  similar 
to  those  of  S.  Elia. 

Darkest  Age.  —  One  might  call  the  period  from  the  death  of 
Pope  Pormosus  in  896  to  the  accession  of  Pope  Leo  IX  in  1049 
the  dark  interregnum.  Tliirty-nine  popes  in  only  a  century  and 
a  half  !  Most  of  them  were  incapable  or  ignorant,  some  of  thorn 
were  mere  tools ;  one  of  them  a  depraved  youth ;  one  a  mere 
layman.  The  destructive  raids  of  Saracen  and  Hungarian 
hordes,  the  disruption  of  the  political  forces,  the  decay  of  edu- 
cation, morality  and  spiritual  force,  sapped  both  the  material 
and  intellectual  patrimony  of  Rome  so  seriously  that  it  was 
bankrupted  almost  as  completely  as  after  the  Gothic  wars.  The 
clergy  had  become  hopelessly  corrupt  and  barbarous ;  there 
was  no  longer  any  learning,  even  in  the  monasteries,  but  here 
at  least  morality  was  not  as  lax,  and  art  found  a  last  refuge. 

Our  ignorance  of  the  historic  and  monumental  facts  of  the 
tenth  century  is  increased  by  the  lacuna  at  this  point  in  the 
Papal  Chronicles.  Only  in  the  twelfth  century  was  the  thread 
dropped  in  the  ninth  century  worthily  picked  up  again. 


114 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH 


Artistically  we  miss  but  little.  The  fragments  that  can  be 
approximately  dated  between  c.  875  and  1050,  like  some  orna- 
mental pieces  at  S.  Lorenzo  and  the  Lateran,  or  at  Soracte ;  the 
well-head  at  S.  Marco  and  S.  Giovanni  a  Porta  Latina  and  other 
similar  pieces  show  a  complete  lack  of  taste  and  technique. 

It  seems  difficult  to  attribute  to  Roman  artists  the  only  mosaic 
of  this  age,  that  which  surmounted  the  tomb  of  the  Emperor 
Otho  III  (983)  at  S.  Peter's.     But  the  two  branches  of  painting 


Interior  of  S.  Maria  in  Capitolio  or  Aracoeli. 


appear  to  have  remained  in  far  better  condition  than  either 
architecture  or  decoration,  and  Rome's  supremacy  in  this  art 
was  not  interrupted. 

Latest  remaining  monument  of  this  decadence  before  the 
dawn  is  the  church  of  Santa  Maria  in  Aracoeli.  Standing  on 
the  highest  of  the  two  Capitoline  peaks,  on  the  site  of  the  an- 
cient arx  or  citadel  of  the  Capitol,  its  ancient  name  was  S. 
Maria  in  Capitolio.  It  belonged  in  the  tenth  century  to  a 
monastery  called  monasterium  CapitoUi.   This  church  inherited 


THE  CARLOVINGIAN  CITY  AND   THE  DARK  AGE    115 

the  aureole  of  the  ancient  Capitol,  became  the  principal  meeting- 
place  of  the  mediaeval  Senate  of  Kome,  the  courthouse  from 
which  its  laws  were  proclaimed,  the  national  church  of  the 
Eoman  oligarchy,  whose  numerous  tombs  made  of  it  their  West- 
minster Abbey.  Though  Pius  IV  and  other  Renaissance  van- 
dals did  their  best  to  obliterate  its  interest  by  destroying  most 
of  the  mediaeval  monuments  and  church  furniture,  its  shell  and 
colonnades  remain. 

Now  begins  the  golden  age  of  frowning  feudal  architecture. 
The  older  peaceful  palaces,  inherited  from  classic  and  luxu- 
rious Rome  are  no  longer  in  harmony  with  the  furious  feuds  of 
the  storm-tossed  city.  They  are  either  transformed,  like  Al- 
beric's  palace,  into  monasteries,  or  into  fortresses  with  heavy 
towers.  A  new  use  is  thus  found  for  the  ancient  ruins :  a 
tower  rises  on  the  foundation  of  a  triumphal  arch  (Circus  Maxi- 
mus  and  Septimius  Severus)  ;  soon  entire  quarters  of  the  city 
will  be  recognized  as  the  camping-ground  of  one  of  the  great 
feudal  families. 

The  mention  of  Alberic  recalls  many  other  proofs  that  this 
extraordinary  man,  "  tyrant "  of  Rome,  and  other  members  of 
his  family,  like  the  famous  woman  Marozia,  were  liberal  bene- 
factors and  builders  of  monasteries  in  and  around  Rome.  That 
of  S.  Maria  in  Pallara  on  the  Palatine,  with  its  still  remaining 
frescos,  belongs  to  this  time.  Another  feudal  magnate,  Cre- 
scentius,  built  and  endowed  a  basilica  of  considerable  size,  S. 
Tripho.  There  still  exists  in  Rome  a  part  of  an  immense  for- 
tified palace  and  castle,  variously  called  house  of  Pilate, 
house  of  Crescentius,  or  of  Rienzi.  Originally  it  was  of  great 
extent  and  centred  around  a  tower  which  is  partly  preserved. 
It  stood  near  the  entrance  to  the  Quattro  Capi  bridge.  It  is 
like  nothing  else  in  Rome  and  the  only  relic  of  its  earliest 
feudalism. 


VI.    ROME  BEFORE  AND  AFTER  THE  GUISCARD 

FIRE 

We  now  approach  the  time  when  the  face  of  almost  the 
entire  city  is  to  be  first  obliterated,  through  the  fire  kindled  by 
the  JSTorman  army  of  Robert  Guiscard  in  1084,  and  then  trans- 
formed by  the  Popes,  prelates  and  nobles  of  the  twelfth 
century.  Let  us  imagine  what  it  looked  like  before  this  catas- 
trophe which  changed  the  levels  and  the  lines  of  the  streets  so 
radically  as  to  necessitate  the  complete  reconstruction  of  many 
quarters. 

The  City  before  1084.  —  Until  then  we  have  no  record  of  any 
considerable  fire  sweeping  the  city  in  Christian  times,  —  none 
equal  to  the  two  or  three  greater  ones  of  imperial  times.  The 
lines  of  the  city's  streets  were  still  practically  those  of  the 
Rome  of  Constantine  and  Honorius.  This  is  hardly  too  daring 
a  conclusion  to  draw  from  the  interesting  topographical  docu- 
ment of  the  age  of  Charlemagne  called  the  Einsiedeln  Itiner- 
ary. Its  author  enumerates  the  monuments,  both  pagan  and 
Christian,  according  to  some  map  which  he  had  before  him. 
He  follows  the  principal  streets  and  sets  down  the  buildings 
on  both  sides,  proceeding  as  far  as  the  city  walls,  and  even 
beyond.  He  reads  the  inscriptions  on  the  monuments  and 
identifies  them;   he  also  enumerates  the  churches. 

He  is  far  from  following  the  erroneous  identifications  of 
ancient  buildings  that  were  current  in  the  later  Middle  Ages, 
and  his  work  shows  a  scholarly  acquaintance  with  the  Con- 
stantinian  Notitia.  The  main  street  of  Rome,  the  Via  Lata, 
still  had  its  colonnades ;  he  knows  the  names  of  the  Circus 
Maximus  and  Flaminius,  the  theatre  of  Pompey,  the  Septi- 
zonium,  etc.  The  walls  of  Aurelian  were  still  intact.  Benedict 
of  Soracte,  somewhat  later  (c.  860),  enumerates  fifteen  gates, 
six  thousand  eight  hundred  battlements,  forty-six  castle^  or 
bastions  and  three  hundred  and  eighty-one  towers. 

116 


ROME  BEFORE  AND  AFTER  THE  GUISCARD  FIRE    117 

The  main  change  in  the  conformation  of  the  city  had  been 
caused  by  the  new  fortified  suburb  around  S.  Peter  —  the 
Leonine  City.  The  colony  of  Jews  was  settled  in  the  region 
of  the  Ponte  Quattro  Capi ;  the  larger  Greek  colony  still  occu- 
pied the  quarter  near  the  church  of  S.  Maria  in  Cosmedin, 
further  along  the  river  up  to  the  foot  of  the  Palatine.  The 
foreign  colonies,  especially  of  the  northerners,  occupied  the 
"  Borgo "  ;  and  the  Trastevere  was  still  filled  with  the  de- 
scendants of  the  emigrants  from  Ravenna.  The  Coelian  and 
Aventine  hills  were  owned  mainly  by  the  large  monastic 
establishments,  with  an  occasional  palace  or  fortress.  The 
Palatine  itself  was  too  thickly  crowded  with  the  ponderous 
ruins  of  the  imperial  palaces  to  do  more  than  give  room  for  an 
occasional  monastery  or  church,  such  as  S.  Maria  in  Pallara 
and  S.  Cesareo.  In  the  same  way  the  Roman  Forum  was  only 
sparsely  populated  and  given  over  mainly  to  religious  estab- 
lishments and  to  lime-kilns  and  workshops  established  in  some 
of  the  principal  ruins,  while  others  were  turned  into  fortresses 
and  surmounted  by  towers  and  battlements, 
f  The  great  mass  of  the  population  was  grouped  in  the  Cam- 
pus Martins  and  along  the  river  banks,  breaking  away  up  the 
Quirinal  slope.  The  lack  of  water  continued  to  prevent  a 
l^denser  population  on  the  heights. 

The  city  was,  therefore,  characterized  by  the  following 
groups  of  buildings :  (1)  the  prominent  antique  structures, 
overlooking  a  mass  of  Roman  monuments  which  still  formed 
the  main  groundwork  of  the  city;  (2)  the  larger  monasteries, 
often  fortified  and  forming,  with  their  annexes  and  grounds, 
quite  a  prominent  feature ;  (3)  the  fortresses  and  palaces  of 
the  recently  arisen  nobility,  either  entirely  mediaeval,  like  the 
palaces  of  Alberic,  of  Marozia  and  of  Crescentius ;  or  formed 
by  the  adaptation  of  Roman  buildings,  such  as  the  theatre  of 
Marcellus,  the  Circus  Maximus,  Hadrian's  mausoleum,  the 
mausoleum  of  Augustus ;  (4)  the  principal  basilicas  with  their 
annexes,  hospitals,  small  monasteries,  courts  and  towers. 

Connecting  these  groups,  partly  hiding  the  gaping  rents 
in  the  antiqi^e  structures,  were  the  lines  of  colonnades  and 
arcades,  the  best  of  which  were  a  classic  heritage  renovated  by 


118  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

Pope  Hadrian  and  supplemented  in  every  century,  so  that 
practically  every  street  was  flanked  by  them  on  both  sides. 
One  thing  certainly  did  not  yet  exist:  a  mediaeval  domestic 
form  of  architecture  of  artistic  character,  except  in  the  case  of 
the  larger  feudal  palaces. 

The  historic  events  that  led  up  to  the  great  fire  are  well- 
known.  The  degradation  of  the  Papacy,  become  the  mere 
puppet  of  warring  feudal  factions  of  the  Crescentii  or  the 
Counts  of  Tusculum,  the  licentiousness  of  a  Benedict  IX,  the 
loss  of  public  order  and  safety,  the  simony  and  immorality  of 
the  clergy,  which  characterized  the  first  half  of  the  eleventh 
century,  had  led  the  people  and  the  clergy  to  place  themselves 
unreservedly  in  the  power  of  the  German  Emperors.  Though 
the  ensuing  peace  made  it  possible  to  initiate  the  much-needed 
religious  and  moral  reform  of  the  clergy,  the  rights  over  the 
Church  and  over  Rome,  that  Emperor  Henry  III  arrogated  to 
himself,  inevitably  led  to  the  conflict  that  broke  out  when 
Gregory  VII,  Hildebrand,  became  Pope.  The  struggle  is 
historic. 

Struggle  between  Hildebrand  and  the  German  Emperors.  — 
Already  in  the  preliminary  contest  of  1063  between  the  Hil- 
debrand party  under  Alexander  II  and  the  German  Feudal 
party  under  the  antipope  Cadalus,  the  fortress  and  basilica 
of  S.  Paul,  the  Lateran  palace,  and  S.  Peter  had  all  suffered 
from  the  continuous  street  fights.  The  city  saw  more  feudal 
towers  rising  at  every  point  of  vantage,  at  the  entrances  of 
the  bridges,  on  the  triumphal  arches. 

The  excommunication  of  the  Emperor  Henry  IV  by  Gregory 
in  1076 — their  mutual  dethronements — cleared  the  ground  for  a 
death-struggle  that  ended  temporarily  at  Canossa  with  a  Papal 
victory.  When  the  struggle  was  renewed  in  1080,  the  Pope 
had  the  Norman,  Robert  Guiscard,  as  his  ally.  The  Normans 
had  been  for  half  a  century  establishing  a  great  kingdom  in 
Southern  Italy  and  Sicily,  and  by  trading  on  their  piety  and 
astuteness  the  Papacy  had  legalized  their  conquest  by  receiving 
their  allegiance  as  temporal  sovereign,  thus  storing  up  a  claim 
to  these  provinces  for  the  States  of  the  Church.  But  for  three 
successive  years  the  German  Emperor  besieged  Rome  unsuccess- 


ROME  BEFORE  AND  AFTER  THE  GUISCARD  FIRE     119 

fully  and  laid  the  country  waste  without  the  Norman's  moving 
to  Gregory's  assistance.  Henry's  final  capture  of  the  Leonine 
City  and  S.  Peter,  the  siege  of  Gregory  in  the  castle  of  S. 
Angelo,  the  successive  capture  of  the  fortresses  in  the  city 
held  by  Papal  followers  —  the  Septizonium,  the  Island  of  the 
Tiber,  the  Capitol  —  did  immense  damage  in  1083  and  1084. 
This  finally  brought  Robert  Guiscard  to  relieve  the  Pope,  who 
still  resisted  in  S.  Angelo. 

Ruin  of  the  City.  —  His  soldiery  entered  through  the  Flamin- 
ian  gate.  Their  barbarous  sacking  of  the  city  led  to  a  revolt  of 
the  Romans,  to  quell  which  the  Normans  set  fire  to  the  city  at 
several  points.  The  flames  swept  everything  away,  from  the 
Lateran  to  the  Flaminian  gate ;  the  city  was  a  mass  of  black- 
ened walls.  The  inhabitants  were  sold  into  slavery  by  the 
thousands,  —  even  the  most  illustrious,  —  and  many  were  car- 
ried off  to  Southern  Italy. 

A  few  years  after,  a  French  visitor,  lamenting  its  ruin,  says 
of  it :  Romafuit.  Truly,  this  must  have  seemed  the  end.  As 
this  prelate  says :  "  So  much  still  stands,  so  much  has  fallen, 
that  what  stands  cannot  be  levelled  and  what  has  fallen  can- 
not be  rebuilt."  To  rebuild  the  impoverished  city,  with  empty 
treasury,  seemed  impossible.  Rome  was  now  hardly  habitable. 
The  great  arteries  of  colonnades  framing  the  highways  as  far 
as  S.  Paul,  S.  Peter  and  S.  Lawrence  were  in  ruins  and  block- 
ing the  roads.  The  Lateran  palace,  the  basilicas  of  S.  Cle- 
mente,  SS.  Quattro  Coronati  and  all  the  other  churches  between 
the  Lateran  and  the  Forum,  were  badly  injured  or  destroyed. 
The  Island  of  the  Tiber,  the  Trastevere  and  Borgo,  the  Campus 
Martins  were  almost  wiped  out.  Certain  regions,  such  as  the 
Coelian  and  Aventine  hills,  have  never  recovered  to  the  present 
day  and  remain  largely  even  now  in  picturesque  ruin,  a  curi- 
ous pendant  to  the  modern  city. 

The  condition  of  the  city  may  be  imagined  from  the  fact 
that  the  Vatican  basilica  and  its  enclosure  was  used  as  a  for- 
tress and  regularly  besieged  in  the  years  following  Gregory's 
death,  when  there  was  a  conflict  between  his  successor,  Victor 
III  (1086-1087)  and  the  antipope  Clement  III.  This  Pope 
dreaded  the  ruined  city  and  fled  from  it  three  times.    Greatest 


120 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH 


patron  of  art  of  his  age,  establisher  of  a  school  of  art  in  Monte 
Cassino,  partly  trained  by  Byzantine  and  partly  by  Lombard 
artists,  as  abbot  of  this  great  monastery  before  he  became 
Pope,  he  exercised  an  imperishable  influence  on  the  aesthetics 
of  his  age  in  architecture,  painting,  mosaics  —  but  so  far  as 
Rome  herself  is  concerned  he  is  known  only  to  have  profited 
by  her  ruin  to  the  extent  of  carrying  off  her  columns  and  mar- 
bles for  his  new  buildings  at  Monte  Cassino. 

Urban  II  (1088-1099)  began  his  reign  as  possessor  of  merely 
a  small  section  of  the  city,  and  the  street  fights  were  wild  and 


S.  Saba,  on  the  Aventine,  in  Process  of  Excavation. 
Below,  single-nave  church  of  sixth  century. 
Above,  basilica  of  twelfth  century,  built  after  Guiscard  fire. 


bitter.  Life  in  Kome  was  one  of  hellish  disorder  and  extreme 
poverty.  This  Pope,  the  preacher  of  the  first  crusade  and  a 
Frenchman,  never  had  a  moment's  peace  in  the  city,  and 
only  toward  the  close  of  his  life  was  able  even  to  enter  the 
palace  of  the  Lateran.  It  was  so  ruinous  that  he  did  not  live 
there  but  in  one  of  the  fortified  palaces  of  the  Pierleone  family, 
then  one  of  the  greatest  among  the  rough  feudal  nobles.     At 


ROME  BEFORE  AND  AFTER  THE  GUISCARD  FIRE    121 

this  time  contemporary  writers  lay  especial  stress  on  the  un- 
healthiness  and  poverty  of  the  city,  ravaged  by  malarial  fevers. 
Still,  S.  Maria  in  Cappella  was  due  to  him  (1090). 

Paschal  II  and  Reconstruction.  —  In  1099  there  came  to  the 
Papal  throne  Paschal  II  (1099-1118),  a  monk  of  the  order  of 
Cluny,  who,  after  a  long  fight,  like  that  of  a  secular  lord,  suc- 
ceeded in  subduing  the  barons  who  infested  Rome  and  the 
Campagna.  For  years  the  city  was  still  ravaged  by  street 
fights.  The  Corsi,  the  Normanni,  the  Baruncii,  the  Pierleoni, 
the  Frangipani,  were  among  the  Roman  nobles  prominent  in 
this  warring.  Paschal  was  to  commence  the  work  of  recon- 
structing Rome,  but  not  until  after  1112,  when  he  made  peace 
within  the  Church  by  repudiating  his  concession  to  Emperor 
Henry  V.  It  was  in  1111  that  the  Pope,  captured  and  ill-treated 
by  the  Emperor,  had  given  up  the  struggle  of  Gregory  VII 
and  had  granted  to  the  Emperors  the  right  of  investiture  by 
which  the  bishops  and  abbots  were  made  subject  in  their  selec- 
tion to  the  Emperor  and  not  to  the  Pope.  But  Paschal  abjured 
the  concession  wrung  from  him  before  a  council  of  the  Church 
the  following  year.  Then  followed  about  five  peaceful  years 
before  the  last  two  years  of  martyrdom,  when  he  was  finally 
hounded  to  his  death  by  the  imperialists. 

It  was  during  these  five  years  that  Paschal  made  the  first 
efforts  to  rebuild  the  city  that  had  been  made  since  the  fire 
of  1084  —  nearly  thirty  years  before.  Modern  researches 
are  continually  enlarging  the  scope  of  this  brief  activity.  S. 
Lorenzo  in  Lucina,  S.  Maria  in  Monticelli,  S.  Bartolommeo 
all'  Isola,  S.  Clemente,  S.  Maria  in  Cosmedin,  were  then  re- 
built and  partly  decorated. 

But  before  discussing  these  works  and  their  style,  a  few 
words  must  be  said  of  the  brief  art  movement  in  the  genera- 
tion before  the  fire,  under  Hildebrand,  because  it  explains  how 
Paschal  found  artists  to  carry  out  his  plans.  Even  before 
Hildebrand's  time  there  had  been  a  beginning  of  artistic 
activity,  shown  in  the  rebuilding  of  S.  Valentino  on  the  Via  Fla- 
minia,  with  frescos,  porticos,  campanile  and  monastic  build- 
ings. While  the  Papal  treasury  was  then  at  a  low  ebb,  it  seems 
as   if  in  certain   branches   art  began  to  show  improvement, 


122 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH 


especially  painting.  The  frescos  of  S.  Clemente  are  certainly 
the  foundation  stone  of  the  revival  of  painting,  and  they  date 
from  Hildebrand's  time;  so  do  those  in  S.  Pudentiana,  which 
he  restored,  and  those  in  the  Cappella  del  Martirologio  at  S. 
Paul.  In  fact,  Hildebrand  undertook  a  radical  restoration  of 
this  basilica  and  its  annexes,  of  which  he  was  titular  cardi- 
nal; and  its  famous  bronze  doors  were  made  in  Constantinople 
by  his  orders.  His  great  friend  was  Desiderius,  Abbot  of 
Monte  Cassino,  the  famous  importer  of  Byzantine  artists  and 
artisans  from  Constantinople  for  the  decoration  of  his  new 


Capitals  of  Propylon  of  S.  Maria  in  Cosmedin  (capital  on  r.  antique; 
crude  capital  on  1.  c.  1121). 

monastic  buildings,  then  the  greatest  in  Italy.  It  is  even 
thought  that  the  present  monastic  buildings  and  cloister  at 
S.  Prassede  are  the  work  of  Hildebrand. 

There  were,  therefore,  artists  of  a  kind  at  the  disposal  of 
Paschal  II  when  he  began  to  attack  his  problem  of  renovation, 
to  tear  down  the  half-ruined  buildings,  establish  new  levels 
and  new  lines  of  streets  and  lay  the  foundations  of  modern 
Kome  as  it  was  until  its  dismemberment  by  the  Renaissance 
Popes  and  its  disruption  by  the  Italians  after  the  annexation 
in  1870.  We  know  the  names  of  a  few  of  these  artists : 
Paulus,  chief  among  his  architects  and  decorators ;  Guide  and 
Petrolinus  among  his  painters. 


ROME  BEFORE  AND  AFTER  THE  GUISCARD  FIRE     123 

The  new  style  arose  through  a  direct  study  of  the  antique 
combined  with  an  infusion  of  Oriental  color  sense.  The  de- 
based decorative  work  in  low  relief  sculpture  was  abandoned 
for  plain  moulded  marbles  and  simple  classic  details.  Grad- 
ually there  was  added  to  this  simplicity  an  ever  increasing  ele- 
ment of  color  through  the  insetting  of  disks  and  slabs  of  rich 
antique  marbles,  porphyry,  serpentine,  rosso  antico,  granite, 


Slab  of  Choii-scituit  at  S.  Maria  in  Cosraediu,  discarded  in  Twelfth 
Century  (c.  780). 


cippolino ;  also  by  geometric  patterns  of  small  cubes  of  these 
and  other  marbles.  Sparingly  used  at  first,  the  whole  century 
elapsed  before  full  richness  was  attained  and  the  splendor  of 
perfect  mastery  of  moulded  and  carved  detail.  In  this  the 
Roman  school  marched  side  by  side  with  that  of  Campania 
and  Sicily.  Applied  to  architecture  and  to  all  manner  of 
church  furniture  and  detail,  this  style  has  commonly  been 
dubbed  "  Cosmati "  or  "  Cosmatesque,"  from  the  name  of  one 
of  its  prominent  exponents. 
In  carrying  out  their  new  ideas  these  artists  of  Paschal  II 


124 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH 


C) 


and  his  successors  in  the  twelfth  century  showed  themselves 
pitiless  toward  the  work  of  the  previous  five  centuries.  Every 
few  years,  in  the  course  of  restorations  in  the  churches  in  and 
near  Home,  some  slabs  are  found  covered  with  the  low  relief 
work  of  the  Byzantine  period,  which  were  at  this  time  turned 
around  and  either  used  as  mere  building  material  and  paving 
slabs,  or  decorated  on  the  other  side  with  the  new  style  of  in- 
laid mosaic  work.  The  choir-screens,  altar-fronts,  pulpits  and 
ciboria  were  torn  away  to  make  room  for  their  successors. 
Not  a  single  Eoman  church  has  preserved  its  internal  decora- 
tion in  this  style.  It  must  be  reconstructed  out  of  fragments 
by  the  special  student,  as  has  been  done  so  interestingly  by 
the  late  architect.  Professor  Mazzanti. 

Political  circumstances  hardly  gave  a  fair  opportunity  to 
the  Popes  and  to  Eome  to  develop  this  art,  after  the  death  of 
Paschal  II.  One  of  the  great  voids  to  fill  was  due  to  the  sack- 
ing of  the  churches  by  the  Normans,  who  looted  the  works 
in  precious  metals  which  had  been  accumulated  during  the 
Byzantine  and  early  Carlovingian  periods.  Of  these  confes- 
sions, choir-rails,  groups  of  statuary,  ciboria,  altar-fronts,  of 
gold  and  silver  gilt,  it  is  hardly  probable  that  a  single  one  re- 
mained. What  the  fire  spared  the  soldiers  stole.  It  took  two 
centuries  to  recoup  the  treasuries  and  churches. 

A  figure  now  looms  up  even  larger  in  death  than  in  life, 
that  of  the  great  Countess  Matilda.     She  had  inherited  enor- 
_  -T^j    irrousi^ extensive  fiefs  and  estates, 

<!'  B    I  ,  .jl>  i twj    extending  through  a  part  of  Lom- 

bardy,  nearly  the  whole  of  Emilia 
and  Tuscany,  large  sections  of 
XJmbria  and  the  Abruzzo.  Her 
territory  comprised  about  a  third 
of  the  entire  peninsula.  During  her  lifetime  she  was  the 
stanch  supporter  of  the  Church  and  especially  the  friend 
of  Hildebrand,  who  persuaded  her  to  will  all  her  possessions 
to  the  Church.  She  died  in  1115.  Her  donation  was  the 
most  epoch-making  in  the  history  of  the  temporal  power. 
It  is  true  that  the  flourishing  communes  already  organized  in 
these  regions,  such  as  Pisa,  Siena,  Florence,  Lucca  and  Breccia, 


Plan  of  S.  Clemente. 


ROME  BEFORE  AND  AFTER  THE  GUISCARD  FIRE     125 

paid  no  attention  to  the  Papal  claims,  and  that  the  Emper- 
ors as  well  as  the  free  cities  disputed  the  right  of  Matilda 
to  dispose  of  the  territory  in  this  way ;  but  it  is  also  true  that 
the  bequest  not  only  gave  a  basis  of  law  for  the  organization 
of  the  States  of  the  Church,  but  proved  to  be  an  increasing 
source  of  revenue  as  the  estates  were  occupied  by  the  succes- 
sors of  Pope  Paschal.  It  has  a  distinct  bearing  upon  the  artis- 
tic fortunes  of  the  city,  for  it  was  partly  in  this  way  that  the 
means  were  provided  for  its  reconstruction. 

Still,  no  immediate  improvement  followed  the  accession  of 
Pope  Gelasius  (1118-1119),  who  was  forced  to  leave  Rome  for 
France  by  the  bloody  fights  of  the  Frangipani  and  the  Pier- 
leoni  and  the  strength  of  Antipope  Burdinus.  His  successor, 
Calixtus  II  (1119-1124),  a  Frenchman,  was  elected  in  France, 
at  Cluny,  and  in  1120  came  to  Rome,  which  he  was  able  to 
occupy  entirely.  His  triumphal  entrance  foreshadowed  the 
yielding  of  the  Empire  to  the  Papal  claims  which  culminated 
in  the  Concordat  of  Worms,  in  1122. 

This  date  marks  a  distinct  advance.  We  find  that  for 
some  years  the  Roman  population  had  been  recovering.  The 
twelve  regions  into  which  the  city  was  administratively  di- 
vided were  all  on  the  north  bank,  and  were  supplemented  by 
the  Island  and  by  the  Trastevere  (Urbs  Ravennatum),  as  well 
as  by  the  purely  Papal  district  of  the  Borgo,  between  S.  Peter 
and  Hadrian's  mausoleum.  The  twelve  regions  had  their  sena- 
tors, their  captains  and  their  militia.  The  entire  organization 
was  under  the  Senate  and  the  prefect  of  the  city,  whose  ap- 
pointment rested  with  the  Pope,  though  for  a  long  time  the 
Emperor  dictated  or  approved  it.  Gradually  Rome  began 
once  again  to  take  shape  and  slightly  to  resemble  a  city 
rather  than  a  series  of  fortified  oases  in  the  desert  of  crum- 
bling ruins.  The  display  of  the  people  in  receiving  Calixtus 
in  1120  already  shows  a  certain  return  of  well-being. 

An  important  step  taken  at  once  by  Calixtus  was  to  forbid 
the  fortification  of  churches  ;  but  that  he  did  not  deprive  S. 
Peter  of  its  defences  is  shown  by  subsequent  events.  The 
Lateran  had  been  uninhabitable  ever  since  the  fire ;  he  began 
to  restore  it  —  both  church  and  palace.     He  also  repaired  the 


126 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH 


aqueducts  and  brought  water  to  the  Lateran.  In  the  palace 
he  built  a  Papal  chapel,  dedicated  to  S;  Nicholas,  and  two  halls, 
a  dining  and  a  throne  room,  though  he  was  not  able  to  com- 


S.  Clemeute,  restored  as  it  was  in  the  Twelfth  Century. 

plete  their  decoration.  Under  him  was  completed  the  recon- 
struction of  S.  Clemente,  S.  Maria  in  Cosmedin  and  other 
churches. 

The  days  of  Honorius  II  (1124-1130)  were  passed  in  an  ab- 
solute tranquillity  that  gave  the  best  opportunity  for  artijrtic 


ROME  BEFORE  AND  AFTER  THE  GUISCARD  FIRE     127 

activity.  The  Eoman  school  of  art  was  now  constituting  itself 
anew.  Hand  in  hand  with  the  Pope  it  was  even  beginning  to 
reach  out  to  conquer  the  neighboring  cities  aesthetically,  as 
he  was  temporally.  S.  Clemente  was  completed  and  dedicated ; 
S.  Niccolo  in  Carcere  and  S.  Crisogono  were  completed. 

Artistic  Revival.  —  The  schism  between  Innocent  II  (1130- 
1143)  and  Anaclete  did  not  check  the  growing  prosperity.  Both 
men  were  Trasteverines  and  during  their  joint  rule  the  Tras- 
tevere  arose  to  great  magnificence.  Anaclete,  of  the  famous 
and  wealthy  Pierleone  family,  was  previously  cardinal  of  S. 
Maria  in  Trastevere,  while  John  of  Crema,  the  wealthy  and 


Bird's-eye  View  of  the  Lateran  Basilica,  i'ulace  and  Annexes,  restored 
as  it  was  iu  the  Middle  Ages. 

able  leader  of  the  Innocent  II  faction,  was  cardinal  of  S. 
Crisogono  in  Trastevere.  So  we  find  a  galaxy  of  large  and 
small  new  buildings :  S.  Crisogono,  S.  Cecilia,  S.  Maria  in 
Trastevere,  S.  Cosimato,  S.  Tommaso  in  Parione,  etc.  There 
were  not  only  churches  built,  but  usually  monastic  buildings 
attached  to  them. 

In  such  a  superb  structure  as  S.  Maria  in  Trastevere  we 
hail  once  more  a  perfect  art,  as  perfect  as  that  which  created 
S.  Maria  Maggiore  in  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries.  There  is 
no  more  patchwork,  no  "  crazy  quilts  ''  of  undigested  antique 
fragments.  The  buildings  are  on  a  large  scale  and  of  an  art 
harmonious  and  complete,  with  its  system  of  decoration  and 
furniture. 


128  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

Innocent  II.  —  In  fact  under  Innocent  II  greater  strides  were 
made  in  reconstructing  and  adorning  the  city  and  in  forming  a 
style  of  architecture  and  decoration  than  under  any  Pope  since 
Paschal.  The  crudeness  still  evident  at  S.  Lorenzo  in  Lucina, 
finished  in  the  year  of  his  accession,  has  quite  disappeared  in 
the  great  basilicas  that  now  arose,  especially  S.  Calixtus  and 
S.  Maria  in  Trastevere.  He  continued  work  at  the  Lateran, 
reroofing  the  basilica,  rebuilding  the  campanile,  completing 
certain  halls  in  the  Papal  palace  and  decorating  them  with 
historic  and  other  frescos,  such  as  the  scene  of  the  coronation 
of  Lothair. 

Lucius  II  in  the  single  year  of  his  pontificate  (1144-1145)  is 
said  to  have  rebuilt  S.  Croce  in  Gerusalemme.  As  he  gave  to 
the  Lateran  the  church  of  S.  Giovanni  a  Porta  Latina,  it  is  to 
this  time  that  we  may  attribute  its  early  Cosmatesque  details. 

Great  Monasteries,  —  With  Eugenius  III  (1146),  a  great  friend 
and  pupil  of  S.  Bernard,  a  member  of  the  Cistercian  order  and 
abbot  of  its  monastery  of  SS.  Vincenzo  and  Anastasio,  outside 
the  walls,  the  monastic  movement  in  the  Papacy  reached  its 
climax.  He  completed  the  work  of  Lucius  II  at  S.  Croce. 
The  Popes  were  leaning  more  and  more  on  the  monasteries, 
and  the  multiplication  of  cloisters  recalls  the  similar  wave 
that  passed  over  Rome  in  the  seventh  and  eighth  centuries. 

The  City. — The  movement  to  rebuild  and  beautify  was  by 
no  means  confined  to  sacred  structures.  The  entire  city  arose 
from  its  ashes ;  burghers  and  nobles  created  a  new  civic  archi- 
tecture which  seems  to  have  been  more  important  in  relation 
to  the  religious  structures  than  had  been  previously  the  case 
since  early  Christian  times. 

We  infer  this  not  only  from  remaining  houses  but  from  an 
amusing  and  interesting  diatribe  of  a  contemporary  German 
ecclesiastic,  Gerol  of  Reichersperg,  who,  writing  to  Eugenius 
III,  is  especially  indignant  at  the  building  of  the  new  com- 
munal palace  or  senate  house  on  the  Capitol,  as  a  sign  of  the 
civic  and  antipapal  pride  of  the  Roman  republic.  "  For 
behold,"  he  says, ''  some  are  now  daring  to  rebuild  the  accursed 
city  .  .  .  out  of  which  only  the  house  of  Rahab,  that  is  the 
Church,  had  been  saved.     Its  civil  structures  destroyed,  ifhad 


ROME  BEFORE  AND  AFTER  THE  GUISCARD  FIRE    129 

grown  up  both  in  morals  and  in  structures  to  be  a  holy  temple 
to  the  Lord.  A  plain  spectacle  to  all  .  .  .  its  imperial  palaces 
and  many  other  wonderful  buildings  in  sad  ruin  represent 
Jericho,  while  the  religious  structures,  every  day  increasing 
and  shining  with  brilliant  images,  prove  clearly  through  the 
daily  increase  and  beautifying  of  morals  and  structures  that 
this  is  indeed  the  saved  house  of  Rahab.  Thus  in  our  own 
days  the  church  of  the  Laterau,  and  the  church  of  S.  Croce, 


Interior  of  S.  Maria  in  Trastevere  (c  1140). 

and  the  church  of  S.  Maria  Nova  were  amplified  both  in  reli- 
gious use  and  in  size  of  walls.  The  house  also  of  the  blessed 
apostle  Paul,  repaired  by  Gregory  VII,  shines  now  with 
monastic  fervor,  which  also  has  been  made  to  flourish  at  the 
monasteries  of  SS.  Quattro  Coronati  and  S.  Anastasio,  as  well 
as  in  the  other  churches  and  monasteries  in  the  city  of  Rome 
belonging  to  the  regular  clergy. 

"  Hence  we  are  not  unduly  afllicted  to  see  that  the  abom- 
ination of  desolation  still  remains  in  the  house  of  S.  Peter, 


130  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

prince  of  the  apostles,  where  battlements  and  warlike  apparatus 
are  placed  in  the  upper  part  of  the  church,  above  the  body  of 
the  blessed  Peter.  .  .  . 

"  If  these  rebels  were  more  shrewdly  attacked  by  the  Church 
.  .  .  they  would  not  be  able  to  rebuild  Jericho  or  Babylon,  as 
they  are  doing  in  Rome,  where  the  Capitoline,  once  destroyed, 
is  now  rebuilt  over  against  the  house  of  God,  the  house  of 
Rahab." 

The  bitterness  of  these  words  can  be  understood  only  after 
studying  the  movement  by  which  the  Roman  people  showed 
the  growing  consciousness  of  its  power  and  sought  to  become 
a  free  city,  as  the  majority  of  the  other  great  cities  of  Italy 
had  already  done  or  were  preparing  to  do.  They  succeeded, 
in  the  teeth  of  both  Popes  and  Emperors,  in  establishing  a 
Senate,  a  republic  ruled  under  a  constitution,  and  in  wresting 
almost  complete  autonomy.  For  forty-four  years  the  Popes 
suffered  every  imaginable  ill  from  this  revolutionary  move- 
ment before  the  Papacy  returned  in  1188  with  Clement  III. 
Meanwhile  five  popes  —  Eugenius  III,  Alexander  III,  Lucius 
III,  Urban  III  and  Gregory  VIII  —  lived  in  exile  from  Rome. 
Necessarily,  during  this  half  century  the  Popes  themselves 
had  but  a  small  part  in  directing  the  artistic  destinies  of  the 
city,  which  were  left  to  the  wealthy  clergy,  burghers  and 
nobles.  The  building  activity  of  the  new  Republic  showed 
itself  in  the  restoration  of  the  city  walls.  An  inscription  on 
the  Porta  Metrovia  of  1157  reads,  after  the  date,  S.P.Q.R.  haec 
meiiia  vetustate  dilapsa  restauravit  (!),  senatores,  followed  by 
the  names  of  the  senators  then  ruling. 

With  the  name  of  Anastasius  (1153),  who  occupied  the  chair 
for  only  a  few  months,  we  associate  the  completion  of  that 
series  of  political  anti-imperial  frescos  in  the  Lateran,  begun 
by  Calixtus,  that  created  such  a  sensation  in  Europe.     His 

^equally  short-lived  successor,  Hadrian  IV,  built  a  fortress  at 

If    Radicofani  and  the  fine  porch  and  campanile  were  added  to 

I     SS.  Giovanni  e  Paolo  in  the  city. 

^^^  Alexander  III.  —  During  the  long  and  heroic  pontificate  of 
Alexander  III  (1159-1181)  the  chronicler  Boso  records  only 
the  consecration  of  the  church  of  S.  Maria  Nova  (1161)  in"  the 


ROME  BEFORE  AND  AFTER  THE  GUISCARD  FIRE    131 

Forum,  probably  marking  the  completion  of  its  apse  mosaic 
and  of  the  destroyed  mosaic  and  porch  of  its  faqade,  begun 
under  Lucius  II  or  Eugenius  III.  But  it  was  really  under 
this  great  Pope,  the  strenuous  adversary  of  Emperor  Frederick 
II,  that  the  Eoman  school  attained  to  complete  mastery  in 
the  handling  of  its  peculiar  style.  The  little  city  of  Ninfa, 
where  he  was  consecrated,  contains  numerous  structures  of 
about  his  time  and  was  abandoned  in  the  following  century,  its 


Niufa,  Ruins  of  the  ^fediaeval  Town  and  Monasteries. 


mined  towers  and  churches  with  faded  and  crumbling  frescos 
still  rising  among  the  head  waters  of  the  stream  at  the  foot  of 
Norba  mountain.  Everywhere  in  the  Roman  territory  con- 
struction and  decoration  on  a  large  scale  was  commenced. 
The  superb  cathedral  of  Terracina  was  built,  that  of  Anagni 
was  completed  (1179)  and  that  of  Civita  Castellana  partly 
constructed,  entirely  or  in  part  by  artists  of  the  Roman 
school. 

We  cannot  associate  his  successors,  Lucius  III  (1181-1185), 
Urban  III  (1185-1187)  or  Gregory  VIII  (1187),  very  closely 


132  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

with  Koman  monuments,  for  the  Eomans  kept  them  in  exile, 
and  the  war  of  the  Koman s  with  Tusculmn  and  the  raids  of 
the  imperialists  prevented  any  close  artistic  relations  between 
Rome  and  the  Campagna,  where  these  Popes  largely  resided. 
Spread  of  Roman  Art.  —  Still,  the  very  political  vicissitudes 
of  the  Papacy  really  helped  to  spread  Roman  art.  During  a 
great  part  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries  the  Popes 
were  absent  from  Rome,  in  an  exile  voluntary  or  forced.  Ex- 
cept for  their  journeys  to  France,  they  spent  the  greater  part 
of  this  time  in  the  various  cities  of  the  province,  such  as 
Viterbo,  Orvieto,  Sutri,  Nepi,  Civita  Castellana,  Perugia,  on 
the  north ;  Palestrina,  Tivoli,  Tusculum,  Albano,  on  the  east ; 
Velletri,  Terracina,  Gaeta,  Segni,  Anagni,  Veroli,  on  the  south. 
Of  all  these  cities  the  two  favored  by  the  longest  sojourns 
were  also  the  most  important,  Viterbo  and  Anagni.  In  these 
peregrinations  they  were  accompanied  by  the  bulk  of  the  col- 
lege of  cardinals  and  the  rest  of  the  Curia.  Whether  there 
were  also  artists  included  in  their  following  we  cannot  be  cer- 
tain, but  we  can  in  some  cases  trace  a  connection  between 
Papal  visits  and  the  activity  of  Roman  art  in  the  same  place. 
I  shall  describe  in  special  chapters  how  this  took  place. 


^ 


VII.   ROME  UNDER  THE  GREAT  MEDIEVAL 
POPES 

It  is,  therefore,  in  the  second  half  of  the  twelfth  century 
that  a  consistent  artistic  expansion  brings  the  cities  of  the 
province  into  close  connection  with  Rome.  The  continuous 
wars  made  the  work  sporadic,  it  is  true,  but  gradually  the 
new  mosaic  decorative  system  became  almost  as  much  the 
prevalent  and  only  style  in  the  churches  of  these  cities  as  in 
the  metropolis,  superseding  the  old  system  of  low  relief 
sculpture.  In  such  epoch-making  buildings  as  S.  Maria  di 
Castello  at  Corneto  (1143-1166),  the  cathedrals  of  Sutri  (1170) 
and  Nepi,  the  monastery  of  Falleri,  the  cathedrals  of  Civita 
Castellana,  Terracina,  Fondi,  Anagni  and  Segni,  practically 
the  entire  decorative  work,  the  church  furniture  and  even 
parts  of  the  structure  were  placed  in  the  hands  of  artists  from 
Rome. 

As  for  Rome  itself,  the  common  notion  that  attributes  to  the 
personal  initiative  and  financial  aid  of  the  Popes  the  produc- 
tion of  the  works  of  art  is  evidently  to  a  certain  extent  an  error. 
There  is  plenty  of  negative  evidence  in  the  prolonged  absence 
of  so  many  Popes ;  in  the  fact  that  several  of  them  never  set 
foot  in  Rome ;  in  the  extreme  poverty  under  which  several  of 
them  labored.  There  is  also  plenty  of  positive  evidence  in 
inscriptions  that  the  works  were  due  largely  to  the  wealthy 
clergy  and  nobles.  This  was  in  line  with  Roman  traditions 
from  the  very  first.  In  the  fifth  century  Severus  and  his  wife 
Cassia  had  decorated  S.  Anastasia  with  mosaics,  and  Leopardus, 
the  deacon,  had  restored  S.  Lorenzo  at  his  own  expense.  This 
custom  had  never  been  discontinued,  and  had  been  exempli- 
fied even  in  the  darkest  ages  by  Alberic,  Crescentius  and 
their  ilk.  Among  typical  noble  benefactors  were  the  Papa- 
rone  family,  shortly  before  and  after  1200.     An  inscription  of 

133 


134 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH 


1201  at  S.  Pantaleo  attributes  its  reconstruction  to  Aldruda, 
widow  of  Scotto  Paparone.  This  Scotto  was  consul  and  sena- 
tor of  Rome  in  1198  when  Innocent  III  on  ascending  the 
throne  persuaded  him  to  abdicate.  He  and  his  son  Giovanni 
Paparone  gave  its  magnificent  mosaic  pavement  to  the  basilica 
of  S.  Maria  Maggiore,  where  these  two  were  represented  on 
the  central  slab  as  knights  in  full  armor,  carrying  bannered 
lances  and  shields  and  sitting  on  caparisoned  horses.     They, 


Detail  of  Main  Portal,  Cathedral  of  Civita  Castellana,  with  Mosaic  Inlay. 

(Signed  by  Laurentius,  c.  IISO,  and  one  of  the  most  artistic  works  of  the  school.) 

or  two  knights  exactly  like  them,  appear  again  in  the  pave- 
ment of  S.  Lorenzo-fuori-le-mura,  which  apparently  was  also 
made  at  their  expense.  To  give  a  list  of  patrons  of  art  dur- 
ing these  two  centuries  would  practically  mean  the  enumera- 
tion of  members  of  the  principal  historic  families  —  Colonna, 
Orsini,  Conti,  Savelli,  etc. 

Sometimes  the  expense  was   divided  between  the  different 
wealthy  families  of  the  parish,  who  were  buried  in  the  church, 


ROME    UNDER   THE  GREAT   MEDIAEVAL  POPES       135 

and  each  one  paid  for  one  or  more  bays  of  the  interior,  or  for  a 
section  of  the  pavement. 

But  the  majority  of  church  benefactors  were  the  members  of 
the  upper  clergy.  The  right-hand  man  of  Paschal  II  in  his 
reconstruction  of  the  city  was  the  famous  Papal  chamberlain 
Alphanus,  whose  tomb  is  at  S.  Maria  in  Cosmedin.  John  of 
Crema  under  Innocent  II  bore  all  the  cost  of  the  erection,  dec- 
oration and  endowment  of  the  church  and  monastery  of  S. 
Crisogono.  Cardinal  Raniero  Capocci  and  later  in  the  thirteenth 
century  Senator  Bertoldo,  his  brother  Cardinal  Stefaneschi  and 
Cardinal  Colonna  were  energetic  and  generous  patrons  of  art 
and  artists,  and  for  them  such  men  as  Giotto,  Cavallini,  Gaddi, 
Eusutti  and  the  latest  of  the  Cosmati  did  some  of  their  best 
work. 

But  once  again  the  Popes  seriously  concerned  themselves 
with  the  city.  To  Clement  III  (1188-1191),  who  was  able  to 
return  to  Rome  in  peace,  is  assigned  the  construction  of  the 
cloister  of  S.  Lorenzo  and  a  further  section  of  the  Lateran 
palace ;  to  Celestin  III  (1191-1198),  a  papal  residence  near  S. 
Peter  ;  and  to  Innocent  III  (1198-1216),  the  hospital  of  S.  Spir- 
ito  in  Sassia,  the  reconstruction  of  the  church  of  S.  Sisto, 
with  its  cloister  and  charming  campanile,  and  the  completion 
of  the  decorative  work  at  S.  Maria  in  Trastevere.  But,  as 
usual,  the  art  records  are  absurdly  incomplete  in  the  Papal 
chronicles,  for  Innocent  III  was  extremely  active,  artisti- 
cally. He  renewed  the  apse  mosaic  at  S.  Peter,  by  the  hand 
of  mosaicists  from  Venice,  enlarged  SS.  Sergius  and  Bacchus, 
adding  its  portico,  and  built  the  porch  and  bell -tower  of  S. 
Silvestro  in  Capite.  In  his  gifts  of  sacred  vestments  and 
objects  in  precious  metals  and  manuscripts  he  was  supremely 
generous. 

Innocent  III  was  in  every  way  one  of  the  greatest  of  medi- 
aeval popes.  The  fact  that  he  belonged  to  the  ancient  Conti 
family,  the  greatest  in  Latium,  with  preponderating  interest  in 
its  principal  cities —  Segui,  Anagni  and  Ferentino  —  helped  to 
fuse  the  art  of  this  region  with  that  of  Rome  ;  helped  him  also 
to  coerce  the  city  with  his  famous  family  fortress,  the  Torre 
de  Conti,  then  reputed  the  highest  in  the  world.     Curtailing  the 


136 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH 


republican  liberties  of  Eome  to  almost  a  shadow  and  establish- 
ing his  authority  firmly  over  an  extensive  part  of  Latium, 
Sabina  and  Tuscany,  he  inaugurated  an  era  of  powerful  Popes 
in  the  same  way  as  Hildebrand  had  previously  done,  and  with 
far  greater  results  in  the  domain  of  art  and  monuments.  Not 
the  least  of  these  triumphs  was  the  peaceful  one  over  the 
Emperor  Otho,  by  which  earlier  conditions  were  reversed  and 


S.  Lorenzo,  Main  Basilica. 


the  Empire   acknowledged   itself  the   vassal  of  the  Papacy. 
Rome  was  then  truly  the  arbiter  of  the  world. 

To  Honorius  III  (1216-1226)  his  life  attributes  the  recon- 
struction of  S.  Lorenzo  and  of  the  Papal  chapel  of  the  Sancta 
Sanctorum  at  the  Lateran,  the  restoration  and  decoration  of 
the  apse  and  facade  of  S.  Paul  and  the  reconstruction  of  S. 
Bibiana.  The  greater  basilica  of  S.  Lorenzo  will  always  be 
associated  with  him  as  one  of  the  foremost  achievement^  of 
mediaeval  Rome,  though  its  decoration  of  frescos  and  inlaid 


ROME    UNDER   THE   GREAT  MEDIEVAL  POPES      137 

furniture  was  not  completed  until  the  middle  of  the  century. 
It  was  under  this  Pope  that  the  two  new  orders  of  S.  Francis 
and  S.  Dominic,  which  were  to  become  the  mainstays  of  religion 
and  the  Papacy  and  the  great  sources  of  religious  art,  began 
to  emerge.  They  had  been  founded  under  Innocent  III,  and 
their  value,  as  suited  to  the  democratic  spirit,  the  emotionalism 
and  the  intellectual  curiosity  of  the  age,  was  recognized  at 
once.  Perhaps  Rome  itself  was  the  latest  of  any  great  Italian 
city  to  be  affected  by  them,  owing  to  the  force  of  its  historic 
traditions. 

The  greatest  artistic  gems  of  this  generation  were  the  cloisters 
of  S.  Paul  and  the  Lateran,  in  which  the  Roman  school  reached 
the  most  perfect  known  combination  of  architecture  and  color, 
between  1205  and  1230.  In  their  awakened  color-sense,  show- 
ing itself  in  decorative  work,  in  mosaics  and  frescos,  the  Ro- 
man artists  were  now  to  anticipate  the  Venetians,  and  for  the 
same  reason,  for  they  also  acted  as  mediators  between  Western 
art  and  the  Byzantine  schools  of  the  East  whence  they  derived 
the  love  and  knowledge  of  color.  To  this  they  added  the  plas- 
tic sense  due  to  their  constant  contact  with  the  remains  of 
classic  art,  whose  forms  they  were  reproducing  with  ever  in- 
creasing purity. 

Gregory  IX.  The  Roman  Commune  and  the  Germans.  —  Under 
Gregory  IX  (1227-1241)  the  fierce  conflict  in  which  this  inflexi- 
ble old  man  passed  his  reign  raged  alternately  with  the  Roman 
Commune  and  the  Emperor  Frederick  II.  The  Commune  was 
seeking  again  not  only  to  establish  its  independence  of  both 
Pope  and  Emperor,  but  its  suzerainty  over  the  States  of  the 
Church  from  Tuscany  to  the  Neapolitan  border.  The  Romans 
fought  against  Yiterbo,  Anagni  and  the  smaller  cities.  The 
Pope  successfully  invoked  the  aid  of  the  Emperor  to  preserve 
his  temporal  domains,  but  this  temporary  alliance  was  broken 
by  the  attempt  of  the  Emperor  to  subjugate  the  whole  of  Italy. 
In  their  fear  of  a  greater  enemy  the  Romans  themselves 
changed  their  policy,  and  by  defending  the  Pope  caused  the 
failure  of  Frederick's  attempt  at  annexation. 

The  Romans  had  just  cause  for  hating  the  Emperor,  because 
in  their  defeat  by  the  imperialists  before  Viterbo,  in  1234,  they 


138 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH 


had  lost  over  ten  thousand  men.  In  the  midst  of  this  great 
struggle  of  Guelfs  and  Ghibellines,  Eoman  art  continued  to 
grow  and  be  diffused  over  the  territory  claimed  both  by  Pope 
and   Commune.     The   Pope  himself  was   of  the  noble  Conti 


ROME   UNDER   THE  GREAT  MEDIEVAL  POPES      139 

family  of  Anagni,  whose  palace  was  in  that  city.  He  resided 
there  quite  as  much  as  in  Rome  ;  and  the  completion  of  the  dec- 
oration of  the  cathedral  of  Anagni  by  Roman  artists  at  this 
time  is  but  another  indication  that  some  of  these  artists  were 
likely  to  follow  in  the  train  of  Pope  and  Curia  in  their  travels. 
It  is  Cosmas  who  in  1231  directed  the  work  in  the  crypt,  which 
he  paved  and  decorated,  with  the  assistance  of  his  sons  Luke 
and  James.^ 

The  last  days  of  Gregory  IX  and  the  interregnum  of  nearly 
two  years  that  followed  were  not,  owing  to  raids  and  wars,  auspi- 
cious for  art  either  in  Rome  or  the  province.  The  greatest  dis- 
aster was  the  destruction  by  the  Emperor  Frederick's  Saracens 
of  the  city  of  Albano  in  1243.  With  Innocent  IV  (1243-1254) 
came  a  truce  and  better  times.  He  had  personally  but  little 
to  do  with  the  rapid  and  splendid  development  of  art  in  the 
city  unless  we  attribute  to  him  —  though  he  was  a  Genoese,  not 
a  Frenchman  —  the  introduction  of  what  has  been  regarded 
as  a  French  specialty :  the  charming  engraved  tombstones,  in 
which  the  figure  of  the  deceased  is  given  in  incised  outline. 
He  lived  at  Lyons  for  a  considerable  part  of  his  reign,  helping 
to  build  its  cathedral  and  the  great  bridge  over  the  Rhone.  He 
added  many  and  influential  Frenchmen  to  the  ranks  of  the 
Roman  clergy,  and  his  Francophile  tendencies  may  have  affected 
the  Roman  school  to  the  extent  also  of  introducing  the  pointed 
arch  in  its  decorative  system,  in  place  of  the  architrave ;  an 
innovation  which  certainly  did  not  occur  much  later. 

Dying  shortly  after  he  had  in  a  few  weeks  won  and  then 
partly  lost  the  kingdom  of  Southern  Ital}'^,  Innocent  IV  was 
succeeded  by  another  Pope  of  the  Conti  family  —  Alexander  IV 
(1254-1261).  It  was  at  this  time  that  the  Roman  Commune, 
under  the  government  of  the  Bolognese  dictator.  Senator  Bran- 
caleone,  was  truly  governed  as  a  democratic  republic,  and  well 
governed  until  the  conflict  between  the  clergy  and  nobility  on 
one  side  —  inimical  to  Brancaleone  —  and  the  guilds  of  the 
people  on  the  other,  after  leading  to  the  temporary  downfall  of 
Brancaleone  and  to  the  old  anarchy,  ended  by  his  recall  and 

1  It  was  from  the  prominence  of  the  work  of  this  artist  and  his  family  that 
all  this  Roman  style  of  artistic  work  was  called  "  Cosmatesque." 


140 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH 


Detail  of  Choir  Seats,  Cathedral  of  Civita  Castellana,  by  Jacobus  and  Drudus. 
.  Examples  of  Eoman  mosaic  inlay. 


ROME   UNDER   THE   GREAT   MEDIEVAL  POPES     141 

the  iDitiation  by  him  of  a  campaign  of  vengeance  against  his 
and  the  people's  enemies,  the  great  Guelf  nobles.  To  them  be- 
longed the  majority  of  the  great  strongholds  in  the  city,  usually 
based  on  some  ancient  monument,  supplemented  by  one  or  more 
towers.  These  Brancaleone  ordered  to  be  destroyed,  and  a 
chronicler  states  that  about  one  hundred  and  forty  of  these 
towered  fortresses  were  razed  to  the  ground,  with  great  de- 
struction, both  of  the  finest  buildings  of  antiquity  and  of  the 
most  palatial  examples  of  mediaeval  civil  architecture. 

Charles  of  Anjou  and  French  Influence.  —  For  several  years  the 
Papacy  was,  willingly  or  not,  strongly  tinctured  with  French 


Sacred  Vestment,  by  Roman  Artist  at  Cathedral  of  Anagni. 
(Middle  thirteenth  century.) 

influence,  by  the  combined  action  of  the  election  of  several 
French  Popes  and  the  successful  expedition  of  the  adventurous 
French  prince  Charles  of  Anjou,  who  was  called  by  the  Papacy 
to  oppose  the  German  Emperor  Henry  and  who  founded  the 
Angevin  dynasty  in  Southern  Italy.  Alexander's  successor,  the 
Frenchman,  Urban  IV  (1261-1264),  never  was  in  Kome  and 
called  in  Charles  of  Anjou  to  offset  the  selection  of  the  Ger- 
manic Manfred  as  Senator  of  Rome ;  but  he  died  before  seeing 
the  success  of  his  scheme,  which  was  carried  forward  by  the  elec- 
tion of  a  devotee  of  Charles,  the  ProvenQal  Frenchuian,  Pope- 
Clement  IV  (1265-1268). 


142  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

The  next  few  Popes  were  more  closely  connected  with  Viterbo 
and  the  province  than  with  Borne.  Clement  IV,  Hadrian  Y  and 
John  XXI  died  at  Viterbo,  and  magnificent  tombs  were  built 
therefor  them  by  Roman  artists;  the  episcopaL  palace  there 
was  rebuilt  to  house  the  Popes  and  their  court. 

Fortunately  for  Rome,  there  came  a  change  in  1277,  when  a 
great  Roman  was  elected  pope,  brought  back  the  court  and  once 
more  gave  to  Rome  its  natural  place.  The  seven  years  of  this 
pontificate  of  Nicholas  III  (1277-1284)  were  tremendously  pro- 
ductive of  artistic  works,  especially  in  painting.  Some  idea  of 
this  is  given  by  his  contemporary  historian,  Ptolemy  of  Lucca. 
After  describing  the  large  fortified  palace  and  garden  which 
he  made  at  S.  Peter,  as  if  in  anticipation  of  the  transfer  of 
the  Papal  residence  from  the  Lateran,  Ptolemy  says  that  he 
almost  entirely  restored  the  basilica  of  S.  Peter.  An  interest- 
ing confirmation  of  this  somewhat  startling  statement  is  a  re- 
port on  the  dangerous  condition  of  the  building  made  by  the 
master-builders  to  the  Pope,  showing  how  far  the  walls  were 
cracked  and  out  of  plumb.  He  continued  the  restoration  of  the 
Lateran  and  there  built  the  exquisite  Papal  chapel  of  the  Sancta 
Sanctorum.  He  died  of  apoplexy  at  Soriano  near  Viterbo, 
where  he  had  built  a  superb  residence,  a  fortified  palace  and 
villa. 

'  As  a  city,  Rome  had  now  reached  quite  a  different  stage  from 
that  of  the  previous  century.  The  main  masses  of  ruined  col- 
onnades and  buildings,  tottering  since  the  Guiscard  fire,  had 
been  levelled ;  new  grades  and  new  arteries  established ;  the 
new  houses  with  their  continuous  colonnades  formed  consecu- 
tive lines ;  the  disiecta  meinhra  of  antiquity  had  been  put  to 
use  in  the  new  structures ;  from  the  revetments  and  pavements 
of  decaying  buildings  had  been  fashioned  the  pavements  of 
choice  marbles  and  the  furniture  of  the  new  churches,  whose 
interiors  and  porticos  were  reared  with  the  antique  columns 
and  finished  with  details  borrowed  or  imitated  from  Roman 
works.  No  longer  concealed  behind  courts,  the  churches 
helped  to  decorate  the  street  fronts,  and  their  bell-towers  in 
large  numbers  served  to  give  picturesqueness  to  the  city  land- 
scape, while  the  same  purpose  was  more  ruggedly  served  by 


r 


ROME    UNDER   THE  GREAT  MEDIEVAL  POPES     143 


the  innumerable  feudal  towers  and  fortresses,  no  longer  mere 
appendages  to  classic  ruins,  but  often  like  the  Conti,  Anguil- 
lara,  and  Milizie  fortresses,  works  of  purely  mediaeval  design. 
At  last  Eome  had  acquired  some  artistic  homogeneity  and  the 
triumphal  arches  and  temples  of  antiquity  reared  themselves 
amid  surroundings  not  too 
incongruous. 

Rome,  the  Source  and 
Seat  of  the  Revival  of 
Painting.  —  It  was  now 
that  Kome  became  the 
centre  for  the  revival  of 
Italian  painting.  First 
Cimabue  came  to  Rome, 
in  1272  ;  then  Giotto  and 
GaddoGaddi.  The  leader 
of  the  Roman  school,  Cav- 
allini,  became  the  greatest 
painter  of  the  age  and 
Giotto's  teacher.  When 
the  Franciscan  order  in- 
trusted the  decoration  of 
their  mother  church  at 
Assisi  to  a  large  body  of 
painters,  who  were  to 
make  of  it  the  greatest 
museum  of  late  mediaeval 
painting,  the  lion's  share 
fell  to  the  Roman  school, 
and  the  Florentines  and  Umbrians  who  came  there  fell  under 
their  influence.  Here  Giotto  took  his  first  steps  as  an  inde- 
pendent artist,  on  emerging  from  his  Roman  apprenticeship. 

HonoriusIV  (1285-1287),  though  his  pontificate  was  but  brief, 
is  closely  associated  with  several  works  of  art.  He  belonged  to 
the  great  Savelli  family,  munificent  patrons  of  art,  who  lorded 
it  over  the  Aventine,  where  their  great  feudal  fortress  stood. 


Marble  Statue  of  S.  Petei-. 
Example  of  adaptation  of  the  antique. 


1  The  statue  is  antique ;   the  head  and  hands  medisBval. 
of  the  old  basilica,  and  is  now  in  the  crypt. 


It  stood  in  front 


144  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

near  the  older  fortress-palaces  of  the  Emperor  Otho  and  of  the 
Fierleoni.  He  immediately  built,  near  the  church  of  S.  Sa- 
bina,  in  the  midst  of  the  family  estate,  a  superb  palace, 
where  he  lived.  It  formed  the  centre  of  numerous  other  resi- 
dences of  the  court  and  family.  His  monument,  placed  next 
to  that  of  Nicholas  III  at  S.  Peter,  was  dismantled,  and  its 
statue  transferred  by  Paul  III  to  the  mausoleum  of  his  mother 
at  S.  Maria  in  Aracoeli. 

Under  Nicholas  IV  (1288-1292)  the  two  noble  families  of 
Colonua  and  Orsini  were  paramount,  not  only  politically,  but 
as  art  patrons,  as  we  see  from  their  works  at  S.  Maria  in  Ara- 
coeli, S.  Maria  Maggiore,  and  other  churches.  The  favorite 
church  of  this  Pope  was  S.  Maria  Maggiore,  where  he  built  a 
palace  for  his  residence,  and  built  the  portico,  campanile  and 
other  annexes,  beginning  also  a  superb  decoration  in  fresco  and 
mosaic,  which  was  carried  out  by  such  artists  as  Torriti, 
Cavallini  and  Rusutti.  The  equally  exquisite  remodelling  and 
supplementing  of  the  mosaics  at  the  Lateran  and  S.  Maria  in 
Trastevere  was  due  to  this  Pope  and  these  artists. 

Boniface  VIII  (1294-1303)  was  more  active  politically  than 
monumentally,  and  his  works  at  the  Lateran  and  Vatican  were 
connected  with  his  Jubilee  and  Papal  glorification.  Still,  there 
was  no  interruption,  as  yet,  in  the  activity  of  the  school,  though 
it  seems  to  show  diminished  artistic  skill  in  architecture  and 
sculpture  as  clearly  as  it  does  a  great  advance  in  painting  and 
mosaic  work.  It  was  under  this  Pope,  however,  that  the  crisis 
came  which  was  to  put  an  end  to  the  artistic,  as  well  as  the 
political,  activities  of  Rome  as  a  Christian  city. 


K- 


VIII.    ROME  DURING  THE  PAPAL  EXILE 

The  transfer  of  the  seat  of  the  Papacy  from  Rome  to  France 
on  the  election  of  a  Frenchman,  Clement  V,  as  Pope  in  1305, 
is  commonly  considered  to  have  been  the  signal  of  the  downfall 
of  mediaeval  Rome.  This  clutching  at  a  spectacular  historic 
fact,  as  a  peg  for  a  dramatic  exit,  is  somewhat  fallacious.  The 
absenteeism  of  the  Popes  for  about  a  century  merely  set  the  seal 
to  a  catastrophe  that  had  been  for  some  time  brewing,  which  at 
this  most  critical  period  in  the  revi-val  was  to  eliminate  Rome 
as  an  artistic  as  well  as  a  political  factor. 
''^  The  first  material  sign  of  the  beginning  of  the  downfall  had 
been  the  embitterment  of  the  strife  between  Commons  and 
Barons  which  led  to  the  destruction  of  the  towers  and  palaces 
of  the  nobility  in  1257.  Larger  causes  had  their  effect.  The 
\  second  half  of  the  thirteenth  century  saw  a  pitiable  descent 
\  from  the  inspiring  and  altruistic  world-policy  of  the  great  Popes 
1  who  had  fought  the  Empire  for  freedom  until  the  death  of  Fred- 
[erick  II.  They  had  stood  for  the  cause  of  democracy  and  of 
Italy,  and  the  people  were  behind  them.  But  now  there  .was  a 
change.  First  came  the  short-sighted  bartering  of  Innocent  IV, 
who  gave  away  kingdoms  to  the  highest  bidder ;  then  the  un- 
fortunate Papal  subservience  to  France  and  Charles  of  Anjou, 
through  whom  the  Popes  sought  to  rule  Italy;  and  finally  the 
narrow  nepotism  of  Nicholas  III  paving  the  way  to  its  even 
more  irritating  form  under  Boniface  VIII.  The  Popes*  influ- 
ence weakened  in  proportion  as  the  people  of  Italy  saw  them 
abandon  the  championship  of  national  interests  and  of  the  free 
cities,  whenever  a  policy  of  expediency  seemed  to  dictate  it. 

And  so,  when  Boniface  VIII  was  elected  in  1294,  the  pas- 
sionate spirit  of  this  last  great  mediaeval  Pope  found  itself  sur- 
rounded by  egotistical  time-servers,  and  beat  its  wings  against 
the  meshes  of  a  net  it  had  helped  to  set.  The  famous  Jubilee 
celebration  of  1300,  when  Rome  saw  some  two  million  of 
L  145 


146  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

pilgrims,  was  a  final  effort  to  conceal  the  real  growing  weakness. 
All  Italy  and  many  leaders  of  the  rest  of  Europe  were  there ; 
and  on  them  Rome  made  an  unforgettable  impression,  which  we 
see  reflected  in  Dante,  who  was  himself  one  of  these  pilgrims. 
But  if  the  pathos  and  grandeur  of  Rome  still  bound  the  spirits" 
of  men,  the  nearer  view  of  the  Papacy  failed  to  rivet  them. 
Spiritual  weapons  without  a  spiritual  force  and  a  conviction  of 
right  to  back  them  were  but  weapons  of  straw  against  sceptical 
flesh  and  blood.  Even  France  turned  against  the  Pope ;  and  the 
scene  at  Anagni  of  the  final  humiliation  of  Boniface  at  the 
mercy  of  a  low-minded  notary  of  Philip  le  Bel  and  of  a  leader 
of  a  band  of  mercenaries,  is  one  of  the  unforgettable  facts  of 
history.  Its  date,  September,  1303,  is  the  antithesis  of  the 
triumph  of  the  great  Hildebrand  over  the  Empire  at  Canossa. 

Exodus  of  1305.  —  The  withdrawal  of  the  Papacy  in  1305 
from  Rome,  to  become  a  tool  of  French  politics,  was  therefore 
not  by  any  means,  the  beginning  of  the  decadence  of  Roman 
art.  The  prosperity  of  the  city  between  1257  and  1303  had 
been  periodically  endangered  by  anarchy,  by  the  open  warfare 
between  Commons  and  nobles,  by  the  opposition  between  the 
Popes  and  the  Roman  republic  which  was  constantly  seeking  to 
limit  the  local  authority  of  the  Popes,  and  by  bloody  feuds  be- 
tween rival  noble  families,  especially  those  of  the  Colonna  and 
Orsini  factions.  But  even  the  Papal  departure  in  1305,  and  the 
announcement  of  its  definite  character  in  1306,  did  not  cause  an 
absolute  and  immediate  catastrophe.  The  Romans  were  slow  to 
recognize  the  fundamental  difference  between  the  previous  tem- 
porary Papal  absences  and  the  present  withdrawal,  and  that  the 
vitality  of  the  city  as  well  as  of  the  Papacy  had  been  fatally 
sapped. 

Destruction  of  the  Lateran.  —  The  difference,  however,  soon 
became  apparent  as  a  consequence  of  the  transfer  of  the  immense 
funds  of  the  Papacy  and  of  the  wealthy  college  of  cardinals,  who 
were  the  principal  private  patrons  of  art.  The  noble  families 
themselves,  owing  to  their  exhausting  feuds,  no  longer  possessed 
the  wealth  of  their  ancestors  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  cen- 
turies. But  the  most  obvious  sign  of  the  times,  one  to  terr>fy 
popular  imagination,  came  almost  at  once.     It  was  the  confla- 


ROME  DURING  THE  PAPAL  EXILE  147 

gration  which  in  1308  destroyed  ahnost  completely  the  historic 
seat  and  centre  of  the  Papacy,  the  palace  of  the  Lateran,  and 
its  church  of  S.  John,  "  head  and  mother  of  all  churches."  As 
the  people  were  just  then  beginning  to  realize  the  reality  of 
the  establishment  of  the  Papal  capital  at  Avignon,  this  destruc- 
tion seemed  like  the  finger  of  God.  The  city  was  full  of  pro- 
cessions of  mourners. 

Destruction  of  Monuments. — The  impression  of  desolation  and 
ruin  which  it  was  beginning  then  to  give  was  increased  in  1312. 
Then  the  German  Emperor  Henry  VII,  trying  in  vain  to  imi- 
tate his  heroic  ancestors,  the  Othos  and  Fredericks,  and  to  attain 
to  the  Roman  Empire  of  the  West,  entered  Rome  with  his  Ger- 
man followers,  seconded  by  the  Ghibelline  party  in  the  city. 
A  fierce  struggle  with  the  Guelfs  ensued.  Every  street,  pal- 
ace and  monument  was  fortified  and  defended,  and  every  inch 
of  ground  was  contested.  The  Emperor  sought  in  turn  to  force 
his  way  to  S.  Peter,  to  the  Capitol  and  to  S.  John  Lateran  as 
a  last  resort,  to  carry  out  the  historic  ceremony  of  a  corona- 
tion in  Rome  that  should  consecrate  his  claim.  Whole  quar- 
ters of  the  city  were  gutted  by  fire,  towers  and  monuments 
razed  to  the  ground  as  soon  as  captured.  When  the  imperial 
whirlwind  had  departed  peace  did  not  follow,  for  the  democ- 
racy of  the  exhausted  city  rose  against  the  nobles  who  were  the 
cause  of  the  disaster  and  in  their  rage  completed  the  work  of 
the  mob  of  1257  in  destroying  the  feudal  strongholds,  palaces 
and  towers.  When  one  realizes  that  almost  every  ancient  mon- 
ument was  used  by  the  nobles  as  a  fortress,  the  effect  on  the 
ruins  may  be  imagined.  And  almost  as  much  to  be  regretted 
was  the  loss  of  the  superb  civil  architecture  of  mediaeval 
Rome.  If  we  can  judge  by  the  miserable  remnant  of  the  pal- 
ace which  once  guarded  the  approaches  to  the  Ponte  Rotto, 
with  its  huge  tower,  by  the  towers  of  the  Conti  and  the  Mili- 
zie,  this  civil  architecture  must  have  been  one  of  the  most 
original  and  impressive  in  Italy.  This  catastrophe  of  1308 
well-nigh  wiped  it  out.  There  followed  now  a  period  of  unre- 
strained disorder:  assassination  and  robbery  were  unchecked 
by  any  authority.  Even  the  younger  clergy  gave  way  to  law- 
lessness. 


148 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH 


In  limited  fashion  the  Popes,  though  absent,  sought  to  heal 
these  wounds.  A  restoration  of  the  basilica  of  the  Lateran 
was  commenced,  with  the  help  of  contributions  from  the  Ro- 
mans themselves  —  only  to  be  partly  nullified  by  a  second  fire 
in  1348.     Work  was  carried  on  at  the  other  great  basilicas :  at 

S.  Paul  the  mosaic  of 

the  faqade  was  made 
over  by  John  XXII 
in  1324,  and  shortly 
afterward  the  roof  of 
S.  Peter  was  repaired. 
But  only  driblets  from 
the  Papal  purse  found 
their  way  to  Kome 
in  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury. The  bulk  of  the 
funds  was  applied  to 
the  erection  of  that 
pile  of  feudal  gran- 
deur, the  immense  for- 
tress-palace at  Avi- 
gnon, which  was  to  be 
a  shield  against  the 
raids  of  freebooting 
condottieri  and  sym- 
bol of  the  temporal 
power.  When  Italian 
artists  were  called  to 
Avignon  to  decorate 
the  palace  and  other  Papal  buildings,  it  is  significant  that 
they  did  not  come  from  Rome,  but  from  Siena  and  Umbria. 

Tuscans  and  Umbrians  were  superseding  the  native  school 
in  Rome  itself.  It  was  to  the  Tuscan  painters,  Giottino, 
Giovanni  da  Milano  and  the  sons  of  Taddeo  Gaddi,  that 
the  Pope  turned  when  he  ordered  an  important  series  of 
frescos.  It  was  partly  of  Umbrian  artists  that  the  shrine 
and  tabernacle  of  the  restored  Lateran  were  ordered,  and 
later  it  was  to  a  Sienese  architect  that  Pope  Urban  Y  con- 


Corner  of  Tabernacle  of  Main  Altar  at  Lateran 

Basilica. 

(Middle  fourteenth  century  and  later.) 


ROME  DURING   THE  PAPAL  EXILE  149 

fided  the  direction  of  the  restoration  of  the  Lateran  after  the 
second  fire. 

Evidently,  then,  by  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century 
there  was  no  school  of  Roman  artists  upon  which  the  Popes 
could  depend.  Yet  it  was  some  time  in  dying  and  in  its  very 
dispersal  scattered  quite  broadly  the  peculiar  perfume  of  a 
style  that  was  to  have  no  morrow. 

A  few  names  of  these  children  of  exile  have  survived.  The 
sculptor,  Marcus  Romanus,  went  to  Venice,  which  in  1317  he 
made  a  remarkably  dignified  and  impressive  reclining  statue 
of  the  prophet  Simeon  for  the  church  of  S.  Simeon  Grande. 
Ruskin  was  quite  right  in  admiring  it.  A  last  scion  of  the 
family  of  Cosmas,  the  Deodatus  who  had  done  so  many  things 
for  the  Lateran  basilica,  perhaps  after  the  fire  of  1308,  went 
in  his  old  age  as  far  as  Teramo  on  the  Adriatic,  where  he 
made  a  charming  portal  for  the  cathedral  in  the  Roman  style 
in  1332.  Stray  traces  of  this  Roman  decorative  work  in 
mosaic  are  to  be  found  as  far  as  Germany  and  France,  prob- 
ably by  itinerant  craftsmen. 

A  group  of  Romans  appears  to  have  entered  the  service  of 
the  Angevin  dynasty  in  Naples,  then  one  of  the  principal 
patrons  of  art  in  Italy.  Here  came  together  Tuscans  and 
Lombards  as  well,  to  direct  or  cooperate  with  the  provincial 
school.  These  Roman  decorators  appear  to  have  strongly  af- 
fected the  style  of  sepulchral  monuments  in  the  South.  For 
while  the  figured  sculpture  of  the  numerous  royal  and  feudal 
tombs  of  the  fourteenth  century  in  Neapolitan  churches 
remained  largely  in  the  hands  of  Tuscan  artists  and  their 
pupils,  the  decorative  scheme  included  in  many  cases  col- 
umns and  friezes  inlaid  with  mosaic  work  evidently  accord- 
ing to  Roman  models,  such  as  we  find  in  the  Papal  tombs  at 
Viterbo  and  in  those  by  Giovanni  Cosmati  and  his  contempo- 
raries in  Rome.  But  the  most  important  accession  was  the 
leader  of  Italian  painting,  Pietro  Cavallini,  who  was  employed 
on  a  yearly  salary  of  thirty  gold  ounces  in  1308  and  successive 
years  by  the  Angevin  King  Charles  II,  and  left  in  Naples, 
among  other  works,  the  frescos  of  S.  Maria  Donna  Regina, 
executed  before  1320. 


150  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

Next  in  prominence  among  Roman  painters  had  been 
Filippo  Rusutti,  part  author  of  the  mosaic  on  the  facade  of 
S.  Maria  Maggiore.  French  documents  show  that  the  court 
painter  of  Philippe  le  Bel  had  been  in  Rome  in  1297  and 
secured  the  services  of  Rusutti,  his  son  Giovanni  and  his  other 
pupil  Nicola  di  Marzo,  who  went  to  France  and  remained 
court  painters  until  their  deaths  many  years  later,  on  a  regular 
stipend.  It  would  be  interesting  to  trace  their  work  in  France 
and  its  effect.^ 

What  would  the  Roman  school  have  accomplished  had  the 
Papacy  and  Rome  retained  a  leading  part  in  Italy's  changing 
life  during  the  curious  transitional  period  of  the  fourteenth 
century  ?  What  share  would  she  have  had  in  the  Renaissance 
of  the  fifteenth  century  ?  If  her  artists  had  held  the  reins 
and  had  thrown  off  the  passing  Gothic  incubus,  it  is  likely 
that  we  should  have  had  from  them  a  more  restrained  and 
purer  form  of  Renaissance  and  that  the  Barocco  would  not 
have  afflicted  the  world  with  its  monstrosities. 

But  it  died  not  only  'too  early  to  complete  its  work,  but 
too  early  to  insure  the  appreciation  by  posterity  of  its  glorious 
accomplishments,  because  the  literary  creators  of  the  fame  of 
Italian  art,  the  Vasaris,  the  Albertis  and  the  Ghibertis,  were 
sons  of  other  centuries  and  ideals  who  despised  or  ignored 
what  they  could  not  understand  or  in  which  they  had  no 
hereditary  pride,  and  who  were  also  richly  endowed  with  the 
local  fanaticism  that  could  easily  dispose  of  the  just  claims  of 
other  schools  than  the  Tuscan.  Only  now  do  we  see  that  the 
very  leaders  among  these  Tuscans,  such  as  Cimabue,  Arnolfo 
and  Giotto,  were  pupils  of  Rome,  that  the  sculptors  and 
decorators  of  the  Pisan  school,  beginning  with  Niccola  and 
Giovanni,  were  immensely  influenced.  Rome  handed  on  the 
torch. 

When  the  Papacy  returned  to  Rome  with  full  purpose  of 
devotion,  a  process  beginning  really  in  the  year  1377  and  cul- 
minating in  Pope  Martin's  entrance  in  1420,  an  overwhelming 

1  The  French  documents  spell  the  name  with  a  B  in  place  of  an  R,  and  I  am 
inclined  to  accept  this  spelling,  as  the  artist's  signature  on  the  mosaic  has  been 
entirely  restored :  his  name  would  really  be,  then,  Filippo  Bisutti. 


ROME  DURING  THE  PAPAL  EXILE  151 

combination  of  circumstances  conspired  to  prevent  the  contin- 
uation of  Rome's  individual  monumental  career,  the  recovery  of 
her  grasp  on  the  reins  of  artistic  influence.  For  over  a  century 
the  mediaeval  city  had  been  going  unchecked  to  ruin.  In 
many  cases,  as  at  the  Lateran  and  the  SS.  Apostoli,  the  ruin 
was  so  complete  as  to  seem  irreparable,  and  for  the  inevitably 
radical  renovation  the  Papacy  had  but  a  shadow  of  a  Roman 
school  to  call  to  its  aid ;  mostly  mere  practitioners  without  a 
spark  of  originality.  The  foreigners  who  were  called  in  de- 
spised the  mediaeval  art  of  the  city  and  felt  that  they  were 
doing  missionary  work  in  helping  to  obliterate  rather  than  per- 
petuate it.  On  these  Renaissance  artists  of  Tuscany  and  Lom- 
bardy,  and  on  Italy  as  a  whole,  through  the  Barocco  age,  the 
influence  of  Rome  was  henceforth  to  be  that  of  the  antique 
city  alone,  whom  these  men  helped  both  to  perpetuate  and 
destroy ;  for  while  theoretically  idolizing  it  and  codifying  its 
models,  they  fashioned  out  of  its  ruins  their  new  palaces  and 
churches,  the  gigantic  bronze  columns  and  canopies  of  their 
high  altars,  and  even  the  lime  of  their  kilns,  from  the  fine 
marble  of  antique  statues.  The  churches  of  Christian  Rome 
did  not  go  down  alone  to  their  dissolution. 


^ 


PART    II 

CLASSIFICATION   OF  THE   MONUMENTS 
ARCHITECTURE 


^ 


PART   II 

CLASSIFICATION   OF   THE   MONUMENTS 
ARCHITECTURE 

BASILICAS 

The  vicissitudes  of  Christian  architecture  in  Rome  are  more 
determined  by  relative  amounts  of  artistic  skill  than  by- 
changes  in  style.  We  assign  a  building  to  a  certain  time 
according  to  the  good  or  poor  workmanship  in  the  making  and 
laying  of  the  bricks,  in  the  carving  of  the  capitals  or  cornices, 
in  the  handling  of  the  decorative  details.  This  is  because  the 
same  materials,  the  same  architectural  forms,  the  same  con- 
structive system  were  substantially  in  continuous  use  from 
beginning  to  end,  and  the  variations  were  primarily  in  the 
amount  of  skill  shown  in  their  use  and  only  secondarily  in  the 
variations  of  the  decorative  themes  and  manner.  Conse- 
quently the  historic  divisions  hold  good  for  architecture.  The 
first  period  is  from  Constantine  to  the  Gothic  wars  ;  the  second 
lasts  until  the  close  of  the  eleventh  century ;  the  third  ends 
with  the  fourteenth. 

I  have  enumerated  the  principal  buildings  in  Rome  in  their 
chronological  order  in  the  course  of  my  historic  narrative  and 
will  here  give  a  brief  systematic  classification.  I  do  not  treat 
of  that  superb  latter-day  effulgence  of  vaulted  architecture 
that  closed  in  the  early  years  of  Constantine's  reign,  after  pro- 
ducing the  Baths  of  Diocletian  and  Constantine  and  the  Basil- 
ica Nova.  Though  it  was  echoed  in  a  few  structures  that  are 
counted  as  Christian,  such  as  the  Mausoleums  of  Helena  and 
Constantia,  it  had  no  further  effect  upon  the  fortunes  of  Chris- 
tian Rome.     The  few  other  circular  or  polygonal  buildings, 

155 


156  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

such  as  the  Lateran  Baptistery,  S.  Stefano  Eotondo  and  S. 
Petronilla,  have  been  already  sufficiently  referred  to,  so  that 
nothing  need  here  concern  us  but  basilical  architecture,  which 
has  no  connection  with  the  static  or  constructive  forms  that 
were  the  main  theme  of  builders  in  the  East  and  North. 

An  index-list  of  Roman  churches  will  be  found  at  the  end 
of  this  volume. 

Materials.  —  Christian  architecture  in  Rome  not  being  called 
upon  to  atteinpt  any  such  heavy  constructions  as  were  required 
by  the  use  of  vaulting  on  a  large  scale,  and  not  needing  heavy 
walls  for  its  wooden-roofed  churches,  did  not  patronize  con- 
crete construction.  Stone  was  used  but  seldom,  in  the  regular 
courses  of  the  opus  quadratum,  in  such  works  of  engineering  as 
the  bridges  of  Gratian  and  Valentinian  and  in  the  restoration 
of  such  monuments  as  the  Coliseum  and  the  theatres.  But 
even  this  was  abandoned  after  the  Gothic  wars:  its  latest 
use  being  possibly  in  the  bridge  by  Narses  over  the  Anio. 

In  religious  architecture  brickwork  was  the  rule  in  the 
body  of  the  structure,  for  the  walls  were  not  heavy  enough  to 
allow  of  a  brick  facing  and  a  concrete  core.  The  quality  of  the 
brickwork  varied  at  different  periods.  As  long  as  the  govern- 
ment factories  continued  the  manufacture  of  bricks,  up  to  the 
time  of  the  Gothic  wars,  they  were  of  excellent  quality,  the 
main  change  between  the  brick  of  the  Antonines  (second  cen- 
tury) and  those  of  the  fifth  century  being  a  diminution  in  size, 
a  change  which  is  found  early  in  the  fourth  century,  though 
there  were  also  variations  in  color  and  texture. 

Mediaeval  brickwork  was  less  perfect  during  the  middle 
period.  Heavy  beds  of  mortar  and  careless  laying,  which  we 
find  as  early  as  the  fifth  century,  with  an  interlude  of  excel- 
lent work  under  Theodoric,  became  the  rule  between  the 
seventh  and  eleventh  centuries.  But  in  the  course  of  the 
twelfth  century  there  was  a  return  to  better  brick-making, 
more  careful  laying  and  thinner  bedding,  which  helped  to  give 
a  similar  effect  to  that  of  the  age  of  Con stan tine. 

In  classic  architecture  it  had  not  usually  been  permissible  to 
let  the  brickwork  be  seen  except  in  works  of  pure  utility ;  with 
Christian  architecture  the  treatment  was  different.  The  ex- 
teriors were  carelessly  treated,  for  they  were  spiritually  of  no 


BASILICAS  ~  157 

interest ;  and  their  brickwork  was  covered  only  sporadically, 
as  by  a  mosaic  on  the  faqade.  The  trimmings  of  doorways 
and  porches  were  also  of  stonework.  It  was  only  in  the 
interiors  that  the  brickwork  was  as  absolutely  concealed  as 
in  classic  buildings  either  by  facings  of  thin  marble  veneering 
slabs  or  by  mosaic  work. 

Two  other  methods  were  occasionally  used :  the  opus  mix- 
turn  and  the  opus  saracinescum  or  a  tufelli.  The  former  con- 
sisted of  alternate  layers  of  small  stone  blocks,  usually  tufa, 
and  brickwork,  there  being  at  times  two  rows  of  the  bricks  to 
one  course  of  stone.  This  method  became  popular  in  the  time 
of  Constantino  and  during  the  rest  of  the  period  before  the 
Gothic  war,  and  again  came  into  vogue  during  the  tenth 
century.  The  oj)us  saracinescum  was  a  "petit  appareil'^  of 
small  tufa  blocks  which  is  found  as  early  as  the  seventh 
and  remained  popular  until  the  eleventh  century. 

It  was  only  outside  of  the  city  that  local  stone  was  sub- 
stituted for  brick,  and  here  the  stone  was  often  used  in  so 
plain  a  fashion  as  to  lose  its  natural  advantages  over  brick, 
as  in  the  basilica  of  S.  Eli  at  Nepi,  or  the  tower  of  S.  Scholas- 
tica  at  Subiaco. 

The  Basilica.  —  The  plan  of  the  basilica  and  its  annexes  is  too 
well  known  to  require  much  analysis,  and  an  important  con- 
crete example  —  S.  Peter  —  has  already  been  described  under 
Constantine's  works. 

An  ante-porch  usually  opened  on  the  street  in  a  long  stretch 
of  otherwise  solid  wall.  Passing  through  it,  one  stood  in  one 
long  arcade  or  colonnade  out  of  four  which  formed  a  cloistered 
court  or  atrium  in  front  of  the  church  itself,  partly  screening 
its  faqade.     I  shall  describe  each  part  in  turn. 

Atrium,  Porch  and  Portico.  —  These  three  forms  of  approach 
to  the  basilical  churches  were  in  use  throughout  the  history  of 
the  Roman  school  and  are  inseparable.  No  other  Italian 
school  made  such  use  of  them,  as  this  early  Christian  form  did 
not  appeal  to  the  Lombard  architects  except  occasionally. 

Ante-porch.  —  The  atrium  itself  was  entered  through  a  door- 
way that  was  often  overhung  by  a  propylon,  or  ante-porch,  a 
narrow  porch  which  had  normally  the  form  of  a  single  pro- 


158 


CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 


jecting  arch  supported  on  a  pair  of  columns  standing  free  from 
the  wall  and  supporting  a  pair  of  architraves  which  rested  at 
their  wall  end  on  pilasters  or  wall-columns.  The  face  was 
in  the  form  of  an  arch  surmounted  by  a  gable.  The  small 
vault  was  either  groined  or  a  short  barrel-vault.  The  existing 
examples  date  between  the  eighth  and  the  twelfth  centuries. 


Propylon  of  S.  Prassede. 

(Ninth  centur}'.) 


Propylon  of  S.  Clemente. 
(c.  1100.) 


The  finest  are  at  S.  Prassede  (ninth),  S.  Clemente  (c.  1120) 
and  S.  Cosimato  (c.  1200).  In  the  latter  case  the  propylon 
was  double,  projecting  as  far  within  from  the  enclosure 
as  without,  because  the  court  at  that  time  had  no  encircling 
porticos :  just  a  plain  wall.  At  S.  Prassede  it  ushers  into  a 
long  vaulted  passage  through  the  monastic  buildings.  It  had 
even,  as  at  S.  Peter,  been  sometimes  attached  to  the  atrium 
portico. 


BASILICAS  159 

When  for  the  early  atrium  a  simple  portico  on  the  street  was 
substituted,  as  was  especially  the  case  in  some  of  the  diaconal 
churches  set  on  the  busy  streets,  the  propylon  was  attached 
directly  in  front  of  the  centre  of  the  portico,  as  at  S.  Maria  in 
Cosmedin.     It  was  the  prototype  of  that  finest  of  all  porticos 


Atrium  and  Fa(,-ade  of  S.  Clenieniu  ^^.  iiu')j. 

—  that  of  the  cathedral  of  Civita  Castellana,  where  a  large 
central  arch  breaks  the  line  of  the  architrave. 

Atrium.  —  The  use  of  the  quadrangular  atrium  intervening 
between  the  church  and  the  street,  surrounded  by  a  high  wall 
and  insuring  quiet,  was  quite  general  before  the  eleventh 
century,  not  only  in  the  suburban  but  in  the  city  churches, 
except  where  pressure  of  space  forbade  it.  Though  not  re- 
quired for  liturgical  purposes  after  the  seventh  century,  when 


160  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 


the  old  divisions  of  catechumens  and  jDcnitents  had  fallen  into 
disuse,  tradition  maintained  them  in  most  cases. 

We  even  see  in  S.  Clemente  a  case  of  the  reconstructio,n  of 
the  atrium  on  a  higher  level  as  late  as  the  beginning  of  the 


BASILICAS  161 

twelfth  century.  Many  old  atria  vanished  in  the  Guiscard  fire, 
and  in  the  reconstruction  that  followed  only  the  faqade  porti- 
cos were  rebuilt,  as  at  S.  Lorenzo  in  Lucina  and  S.  Giorgio  in 
Velabro.  In  fact  S.  Clemente  has  the  only  atrium  that  re- 
mains. In  several  other  cases,  it  is  true,  the  quadrangular 
area  or  court  surrounded  by  walls  remains,  but  the  porticos 
have  vanished ;  this  has  happened  at  S.  Qiiattro  Coronati,  S. 
Cosimato,  S.  Saba,  S.  Cecilia,  S.  Prassede,  S.  Martino  ai  Monti, 
S.  Silvestro  and  others.  Still  there  are  old  prints  and  drawings 
to  show  us  the  appearance  of  such  immense  arcaded  or  colon- 
naded atria  as  those  of  S.  Peter,  S.  Paul,  the  Lateran  (p.  47). 

These  atria  were  used  for  meetings,  recreation,  fairs,  feasts, 
ablutions  and  were  decorated  with  sepulchral  monuments, 
fountains,  frescos  and  inscriptions.  Spaces  in  them  were 
hired  out  to  venders  of  sacred  images,  relics  and  other  religious 
emblems,  and  their  walls  often  supplemented  the  contents  of 
the  interiors. 

Portico.  —  There  were  two  types  of  both  atria  and  facade 
porticos,  the  arcaded  and  the  architravedj^  the  former  prevailed 
in  the  earlier  period,  the  latter  after  the  eleventh  century. 
S.  Clemente  at  present  has  architraves  on  three  sides  and 
arches  against  the  faqade.  Except  for  the  short  side  porch  at 
S.  Sabina,  the  restored  closed  porch  at  S.  IMaria  in  Cosmedin 
and  the  crude  ruinous  porch  at  S.  Giovanni  a  Porta  Latina  all 
arched  examples  have  disappeared,  but  the  cuts  of  1588  show 
that  even  then  such  porches  had  survived  at  S.  Balbina,  S. 
Eusebio  and  S.  Vitale,  which  may  all  be  dated  tentatively,  on 
historic  grounds,  before  the  ninth  century.  That  of  the  Vati- 
can basilica  was  also  arcaded. 

The  type  of  architraved. portico  seems  to  have  been  estab- 
lished at  the  very  outset  of  the  revival,  for  it  appears  in  the  time 
of  Paschal  II  (c.  1100)  at  S.  Lorenzo  in  Lucina,  where  the  crude 
form  of  the  Ionic  capitals  with  volutes  cut  into  the  surface 
instead  of  projecting  from  it  betray  the  infantile  stage  of  the 
school  of  stone-cutters  and  designers  who  were  to  produce, 
later  in  the  century,  the  classic  porches  of  S.  Giorgio  in  Vela- 
bro, S.  Crisogono,  S.  Maria  in  Trastevere,  S.  Cecilia,  f  S.  John 
Lateran,  t  S.  Croce,  t  S.  Maria  Maggiore,  f  S.  Maria  Nuova, 


162  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

t  S.  Sebastiano,  SS.  Giovanni  e  Paolo,  etc.  The  series  closes 
in  Rome  with  the  finest  remaining  example,  that  of  Honorius 
III  at  S.  Lorenzo  by  Vassallettus.^ 

The  same  artists  built  similar  porches  in  some  of  the  cities 
of  the  province ;  in  fact  those  of  the  cathedrals  of  Civita 
Castellana  and  Terracina  —  the  latter  sadly  mutilated  —  sur- 
passed in  rich  beauty  the  existing  examples  in  Eome  itself. 
That  of  Civita  Castellana  is  signed  with  the  date  1210  by  two 
Roman  artists,  father  and  son,  the  famous  members  of  the 
"  Cosmati "  family,  in  the  following  mosaic  inscription  on  the 
central  arch : 

t  MAGISTER  •  lACOBUS  •  CIVIS  •  ROMANUS  •  CUM  •  COSMA  •  FILIO  • 
SUO  •  CARISSIMO  •  FECIT  •  HOC  •  OPUS  ANNO  DNI  •  M  •  CCX. 

Giacomo  and  his  son  Cosma  were  son  and  grandson  of 
Lorenzo  who  had  designed  and  built  the  body  of  the  church 
and  its  faqade.  In  default  of  the  Lateran  porch,  now  destroyed, 
where  its  designer  Niccola  d'  Angelo  had  introduced  an  elaborate 
mosaic  frieze,  the  Civita  Castellana  porch  and  the  faqade  portals 
show  the  marks  of  the  best  workmanship  of  the  Roman  school, 
both  in  design  and  in  details.  The  reproduction  of  the  antique 
in  capitals,  bases  and  mouldings  is  so  perfect  as  to  produce  the 
illusion  of  the  originals ;  and  yet  the  elements  that  are  entirely 
mediaeval,  such  as  the  mosaic  ornamentation,  are  combined 
with  the  antique  in  charming  harmony  (see  pp.  134,  166). 

Fa9ade.  —  The  facades  were  exceedingly  simple  in  their  up- 
per surface.  There  were  but  two  types:  the  central  gable, 
following  usually  the  outline  of  the  structure  behind  it,  and 
the  screen  facade,  with  square  top,  usually  made  to  overhang, 
for  purposes  of  protection,  by  a  gradual  projection  of  the 
courses  of  brick  both  forward  and  sideways. 

The  surface  was  decorated  with  none  of  the  architectural 
memberment  so  common  in  most  other  Italian  schools ;  none 
of  the  false  or  real  galleries  of  arcades,  none  of  the  vari-colored 
marble  facings.  Architecturally  speaking,  the  plain  brickwork 
which  was  invariably  used  was  sometimes  varied  by  the  addition, 

1  The  porches  here  marked  f  have  been  destroyed  aud  are  known  Only 
from  drawings  and  cuts. 


BASILICAS 


163 


along  the  edge  and  across  the  base  of  the  gable,  of  the  usual 
line  of  cuneiform  bricks  placed  diagonally  and  by  a  slight 
stone  cornice.  But  in  the  more  important  churches  the  entire 
surface  was  concealed  by  a  mosaic  composition  extending  from 
summit  to  portico,  several  of  which  are  described  elsewhere. 
They  were  found  at  S.  John  Lateran,  S.  Peter,  S.  Paul,  S.  Maria 
Maggiore,  S.  Maria  in  Trastevere,  S.  Maria  Naova,  S.  Celso, 
etc.     This  converted  the  facade  above  the  porch  into  one  blaze 


Portico  of  S.  8aba,  by  Jacobo  di  Lorenzo, 
(c.  12(K).) 

of  color.  Still,  toward  the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages  more  win- 
dows were  sometimes  opened  in  the  facade.  At  S.  Peter  in 
the  thirteenth  century,  beside  the  wheel-window  in  the  gable, 
there  were  two  rows  of  three  tall  mullioned  windows,  the  lower 
row  being  flanked  by  two  more.  Only  in  such  an  exceptional 
case  as  S.  Saba  was  a  second  story,  concealing  the  facade, 
added  to  the  porch,  and  this  was  due  to  monastic  influence. 

The  lower  part  of  the  faqade  was  always  covered  by  a  pro- 
jecting portico,  which  is  elsewhere  described,  consisting  either 


164  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

of  one  side  of  the  quadrangular  atrium  or  of  an  independent 
arcade  or  colonnade.  The  wall  space  underneath  was  usually- 
broken  by  as  many  doors  as  there  were  aisles  to  the  church, 
normally  three,  sometimes  five.  In  the  minor  basilicas  there 
was  but  a  single  door,  and  in  exceptional  cases,  as  at  S.  Peter's, 
there  was  a  supplementary  door  for  special  occasions. 

These  doors  were  flat-topped,  their  architraves  and  jambs 


Monastic  Church  of  SS.  Vinceuzo  ed  Anastasio. 
(c.  1140  and  seventh  century.) 

being  carved  in  the  early  Middle  Ages,  and  decorated  with 
mosaics  after  the  twelfth  century,  though  the  richest  doors 
are  those  made  up  of  antique  carved  fragments.  Among  re- 
maining doors  the  earliest  examples  are  those  of  the  tenth 
century  at  S.  Elia  (Nepi)  and  S.  Stef  ano,  near  the  apse  of  S.  Peter. 
xQuite  monumental  is  that  of  S.  Silvestro  in  Capite ;  and  the  early 
f  f  use  of  mosaic  decoration  appears  during  the  twelfth  century  at  S. 


\^i  Giovanni  a  Porta  Latina  and  SS.  Giovanni  e  Paolo.    Compared 


BASILICAS 


165 


with,  the  Komanesque  and  Gothic  doorways  of  other  schools 
these  Roman  doors  seem  extremely  simple  and  classic,  except 
where  there  is  quite  an  exceptionally  rich  combination  of 
mosaics  and  classic  decoration,  as  in  the  main  portal  of  Civita 
Castellana  cathedral.  Only  in  a  few  cases  in  Rome  itself,  at  S. 
Pudentiana  and  S.  Marta,  was  the  scheme  of  northern  decora- 
tive sculpture  adopted,  between  the  eleventh  and  thirteenth 


Doorway  at  Church  of  S.  Elia, 

near  Nepi. 

(Ninth  and  tenth  centuries.) 


Doorway  at  S.  Marta. 
(Twelfth  century.) 


centuries.  Sometimes,  as  at  S.  Elia  for  the  early  mediaeval 
period  and  Civita  Castellana  for  the  middle  period,  the 
architrave  was  surmounted  by  an  arch. 

Interior.  —  The  interior  of  a  typical  basilica  consisted  of  a 
very  wide  central  nave  flanked  usually  by  one  aisle  on  each 
side  and  terminating  in  a  semicircular  apse.  There  were 
three  ways  in  which  this  plan  was  varied.  In  the  larger 
basilicas  there  were  sometimes  two  aisles  on  each  side  instead 
of  one,  and  there  was  interposed  sometimes  also  a  cross-nave 


166 


CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 


between  nave  and  apse,  called  transept.  This  was  entered  from 
the  nave  under  a  great  spanning  arch  called  the  triumphal 
arch.  The  third  variation  did  not  occur  until  late,  when, 
in  the  eighth  century,  the  apse  was  flanked  by  two  apses  oppo- 
site the  aisles  (S.  Maria  in  Cosmedin).     They  seem  to  have 

been  a  develop- 
ment out  of  the 
sacristies  that 
often  stood  here, 
but  it  never  be- 
came as  popular 
in  Rome  as  else- 
where. 

So  much  for  the 
plan.  The  eleva- 
tion was  quite  as 
simple.  The  wall 
separating  nave 
from  aisles  was 
upheld  by  a  row 
of  monolithic  col- 
umns connected 
either  by  an  ar- 
cade or  a  colon- 
nade. This  wall 
was  absolutely 
flat  and  merely 
pierced  by  a  sin- 
gle line  of  round- 
Ko  heavy  cornices 


Main  Doorway  of  Cathedral,  Civita  Castellana. 


headed  windows  forming  a  plain  clerestory, 
gave  any  horizontal  play  of  light  and  shade. 

It  was  only  very  exceptionally,  as  at  S.  Marco  and  S. 
Lorenzo,  that  the  high  choir,  which  became  so  common  in  the 
north  during  the  Carlovingian  era,  was  adopted  in  Roman 
churches.  Even  when  confessions  and  crypts  of  some  size 
were  built  under  transept  and  apse,  the  rise  at  the  apse  was 
only  of  a  few  steps  above  the  level  of  the  nave,  so  that  the 
sweep  of  the  entire  pavement  was  hardly  interrupted.     Kfeither 


BASILICAS  167 

were  there  in  the  nave  any  vertical  interruptions  in  the  form 
of  piers  or  engaged  shafts  or  pilasters,  such  as  would  have 
occurred  had  the  school  adopted  vaulting,  which  it  only 
occasionally  used  in  the  side-aisles.  The  most  interesting 
crypt  in  Rome  is  the  post-Carlovingian  one  at  S.  Alessio. 

Neither  was  there  any  relief  to  the  flatness  of  effect  above 
the  main  arcades  or  colonnades  through  the  use  of  galleries,  so 
common  in  nearly  all  other  Italian  Schools.  The  exceptional 
galleries  of  the  sixth  and  seventh  centuries  at  S.  Lorenzo  and 
S.  Agnese  were  due,  we  found,  to  the  low  level  to  which  it 
was  necessary  in  these  cases  to  sink  the  church  in  order  to 
place  it  in  the  right  relation  to  the  cemeterial  tomb  of  the 
titular  martyr.  In  the  later  (c.  1100)  gallery  at  the  SS.  Quattro 
Coronati  there  was  an  equally  special  reason,  for  the  three 
aisles  of  the  new  church,  being  crowded  into  the  central  nave 
of  the  older  structure,  the  galleries  were  required  so  that  the 
old  outer  walls  could  be  used,  with  their  windows. 

In  view,  then,  of  this  plain  flatness  of  the  Roman  interior,  a 
pictorial  decoration  was  absolutely  necessary.  Under  Frescos 
and  Mosaics  this  is  described.  It  Avas  arranged  so  as  to  cover 
the  entire  surface.  Immediately  under  the  roof,  and  between 
the  windows,  were  single  figures  of  angels,  prophets  or  saints. 
Then  below  was  usually  a  double  line  of  oblong  scenes,  like 
those  still  remaining  in  mosaic  at  S.  Maria  Maggiore,  forming 
an  uninterrupted  series  from  facade  to  transept  and  apse.  In 
the  larger  basilicas  there  was  sometimes  added,  beneath  them 
and  immediately  over  the  columns,  a  series  of  medallion  por- 
traits. This  was  the  case  at  S.  Peter,  S.  Paul  and  S.  John 
Lateran. 

The  richness  of  the  color  scheme  was  increased  by  the  lavish 
use  of  large  hangings  woven  with  religious  scenes  or  heraldic 
animals,  emblems  and  ornaments.  They  were  hung  between 
the  columns  on  rods  and  were  among  the  most  sumptuous 
Papal  gifts  to  the  churches,  supplemented  by  numerous  lamps. 

This  decoration  in  color  was  supplemented  by  a  rich  cycle 
of  church  furniture  and  accessories.  Sometimes  a  line  of 
superb  columns  marked  the  transept  or  confession.  Always 
the  upper  part  of  the  interior  was  partly  filled  by  an  elaborate 


168 


CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 


group  of  structural  furniture :  an  enclosing  rail,  about  the 
width  of  the  central  nave  and  of  considerably  greater  length ; 
within  it  the  choir-seats,  the  ambones  or  pulpits  and  the 
paschal  ca,ndlestick ;  at  its  further  end  the  altar,  often  at  the 
top  of  a  low  line  of  steps,  with  its  confession,  its  canopy  or 
ciborium  and  its  decorative  accessories ;  beyond,  in  the  apse, 
the  seats  for  the  higher  clergy. 

The  columns  were,  as  a  rule,  placed  very  close,  —  far  closer 
than  was  the  case  in  other  mediaeval  schools  that  used  the 


Interior  of  S.  Maria  Maggiore. 
(Fourth  and  fifth  centuries,  with  Renaissance  ceiling.) 


column.  The  shafts  were  monoliths,  of  course  ;  not  constructed 
in  courses,  as  had  been  the  Greek  custom  and  as  was  to  be  the 
mediaeval  custom  in  other  schools.  The  aisles  were  so  much 
lower  and  narrower  than  the  nave  and  so  much  less  brilliantly 
lighted  as  to  concentrate  all  the  effects  in  the  central  section 
which  was  alone  richly  decorated. 


BASILICAS 


169 


In  the  use  of  the  orders  we  notice  certain  peculiarities. 
The  Tuscan-Doric  is  found  but  once,  in  S.  Pietro  in  Vincoli. 
The  rich  Corinthian  and  Composite  ruled  almost  exclusively, 
with  occasional  use  of  the  Ionic  (e.g.  S.  Maria  Maggiore), 
from  the  time  of  Constantine  to  the  eleventh  century ;  but  with 
the  neo-antique  revival  of  the  twelfth  century  the  palm  went 
to  the  Ionic  order.     There  are  a  number  of  forms  that  cannot 


Rear  Basilica  of  S.  Lorenzo. 
(Sixth  century  with  Clborium  of  c.  1150.) 


be  strictly  reckoned  into  these  orders,  such  as  the  Egyptian- 
izing  capitals  at  S.  Pudentiana  and  the  pseudo-Ionic  cubes  at 
S.  Stefano. 

This  is  hardly  the  place  to  discuss  the  question  of  how  far  at 
different  times  the  ancient  capitals  and  bases  were  used,  how 
far  they  were  imitated.  In  a  majority  of  cases  there  is  a  mix- 
ture of  antique  and  contemporary  work,  and  the  imitations 
vary  from  the  crude  work  in   the   porches   of   S.    Maria  in 


170 


CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  MONUMENTS 


Cosmedin  and  S.  Lorenzo  in  Lucina,  to  the  superb  work  at 
Civita  Castellana  and  S.  Lorenzo  fuori  le  Mura.  There  was  no 
period,  from  the  fourth  to  the  fourteenth  centuries,  when  antique 
material  ceased  to  be  used,  but  it  was  done  with  greater  or  less 
artistic  skill,  in  the  same  way  as  the  imitations  themselves 
varied.  At  S.  Sabina,  for  example,  the  entire  series  seems 
taken  from  a  single  monument,  giving  unity  to  the  effect ;  but 


Interior  of  S.  Clemente. 
(Showing  choir-precinct,  ambones  and  ciborium  of  twelfth  century,  incorporating  sixth- 
century  fragments.) 


what  was  possible  then,  at  the  beginning  of  the  spoliation  of 
antique  buildings,  was  later  impossible,  and  capitals  of  all 
sizes,  styles  and  workmanship  were  combined  and  eked  out 
by  contemporary  works. 

The  columns  were  surmounted  more  frequently  by  arcades 
than  by  a  continuous  architrave.  Where  the  architrave 
appears,  it  is  sometimes,  as  at  S.  Lorenzo  (rear  basilica)  and  S. 
Prassede,  antique  material  used  without  much  change.     But 


BASILICAS 


171 


the  influence  of  the  large  architraved  interior  of  S.  Maria 
Maggiore  (fourth  century)  seems  to  have  been  very  strong 
with  the  artists  of  the  revival  and  to  have  inspired  such 
interiors  as  S.  Maria  in  Trastevere  (twelfth  century)  and  the 
even  earlier  charming,  though  small,  S.  Maria  ad  Pineam 
(1090).  The  ceilings  were  flat  and  coffered,  hiding  the  beams. 
Pavements,  —  In  no  school  of  Christian  art  are  the  pavements 
of  such  importance  as  in  the   Roman.     Nowhere  else   in   an 


■pR^^^iP- 


Froni  Architrave  of  S.  Maria  in  Trastevere. 

(Showing  use  in  twelftii  century  of  antique  fragments  for  corbels.) 


early  Christian  or  mediaeval  church  does  the  eye  instinctively 
seek  the  ground  for  a  design  and  material  that  shall  harmonize 
with  and  enrich  the  effect  of  the  interior.  The  exceptions 
that  come  to  mind  instinctively  at  Venice  (San  Marco, 
Murano,  Torcello),  Florence  (Baptistery),  Siena  (Cathedral), 
and  in  Southern  Italy  and  Sicily  (Salerno,  Palermo,  etc.),  only 
serve  to  accentuate  the  richness  of  the  Roman  school,  which 
can  furnish  a  list  of  over  a  hundred  churches  with  character- 
istic mosaic  pavements  in  geometric  patterns. 

The  type  with  which  we  are  familiar  appears  fully  formed 


172 


CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  MONUMENTS 


as  early  as  the  eleventh  century  and  was  used  henceforth 
without  radical  change  until  the  sixteenth  century.  But  how 
was  the  type  created?  Some  years  ago  I  expressed  the 
opinion  that  it  was  adopted  bodily  by  the  Roman  school  from 
Byzantine  art.  Recent  discoveries  and  studies  have  led  me 
to  modify  this  view  and  to  see  in  the  Byzantine  influence  a 
less  radical  element  acting  upon  a  native  substratum  that  was 
by  no  means  obliterated.  In  fact  there  is  in  Roman  designs 
room  for  a  common  origin,  and  pavements  of  the  age  of  Con- 


Mosaic  Pavement  of  Nave,  S.  Clemente. 


stantine  probably  served  as  a  point  of  departure  for  both  the 
eastern  and  western  schools.  Among  the  more  gifted  artists 
of  Byzantium  progress  was  made  in  two  directions  :  in  the  man- 
agement of  colors  ;  and  in  the  adjustment  and  harmony  of  the 
design.  The  descriptions  of  the  pavements  in  the  imperial 
palaces  and  in  S.  Sophia,  at  Constantinople,  make  it  quite  clear 
that  the  exquisitely  fine  gradations  of  color  and  symmetry  of 
composition  in  the  Venetian  pavements  are  qualities  derived 
from  the  Byzantine  school,  even  if  not  due  to  the  direct  work 
of  Byzantine  hands.  If  in  these  works  we  can  trace  the  in- 
fluence of  the  Oriental  color  sense  in  the  central  school  at  Con- 


BASILICAS  173 

stantinople,  we  can  see  that  not  all  Byzantine  work  was  so 
rich  in  color,  but  that  the  more  western  branches  (such  as 
the  school  of  Mt.  Athos),  which  were  the  principal  source  of 
the  Byzantine  element  in  Sicilian  art,  used  less  color  and  more 
line,  very  much  after  the  fashion  of  the  Boman  school.  There 
is  far  greater  similarity  between  the  Boman  pavements  and 
those  of  Sicily  and  Mt.  Athos,  than  between  those  of  Bome 
and  Venice. 

If,  then,  Byzantine  artists  were  called  to  the  Boman  prov- 
ince in  the  eleventh  century  to  make  such  pavements  as 
those  of  Monte  Cassino  and  Grottaferrata,  and  if  the  earli- 
est pavements  of  Boman  churches  in  this  style  cannot  be 
dated  before  the  close  of  this  century,  it  would  seem  natural 
to  conclude  that  in  their  final  form  the  Boman  pavements 
were  a  Byzantine  derivative. 

Still,  the  difference  is  not  fundamental  between  this  type 
and  that  of  the  chapel  of  San  Zeno  at  Santa  Prassede,  which 
appears  to  be  of  the  late  Carlovingian  age  (Paschal  I).  Even 
earlier  work  in  the  choirs  of  S.  Giorgio  in  Velabroand  S.  Maria 
Antiqua  appears  to  be  a  connecting  link,  with  patterns  more 
broken  up  and  less  elaborate,  materials  less  carefully  prepared 
and  less  varied. 

In  their  final  form  the  pavements  consist  of  a  succession  of 
large  porphyry  or  serpentine  slabs,  either  circular  or  quadran- 
gular, framed  by  small  marble  cubes  of  various  colors  set  in  a 
white  marble  ground  and  arranged  in  geometrical  patterns. 
These  big  central  disks  had  a  symbolic  meaning  and  were 
named  in  some  of  the  Papal  ceremonial  documents  describing 
such  great  affairs  as  the  imperial  coronations  at  S.  Peter. 

These  pavements  appear  to  have  been  the  source  for  the  later 
development  of  similar  geometric  ornamentation  in  church 
furniture  and  on  vertical  surfaces,  where  it  was  possible  to 
use  frailer  materials  than  solid  marble  and  so  produce  more 
delicate  and  varied  effects. 

The  most  exquisite  of  all  is  that  of  the  Papal  chapel  of  the 
Lateran,  the  Sancta  Sanctorum,  which  is  as  delicate  as  the 
best  vertical  ornamentation. 

The  Benaissance  period  saw  at  first  no  change  in  this  method 


174 


CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 


of  paving  churches,  as  is  proved  by  the  work  at  S.  John  Lateran 
and  the  Sistine  chapel  in  the  Vatican.  It  was  the  last  branch 
of  art  belonging  to  the  mediaeval  Roman  school  to  be  discarded. 

No  description  of  a  Eoman  basilica  would  be  complete  with- 
out that  of  its  stable  furniture  or  furnishings.  Of  the  sepul- 
chral monuments  I  shall  speak  under  Sculpture ;  the  rest  are 
more  completely  a  part  of  architectural  decoration. 

Pulpit  or  Ambone  and  Choir-screen.  —  Kome  has  preserved 
no  examples  of  the  ambones  or  pulpits  of  the  early  Christian 


■  i'^V'C'' 


Carved  Pulpit  of  Cathedr:i I  ol  1  ,  i niiiio  (irii>ti action). 
(c.  IIIU.) 


or  early  mediaeval  periods,  though  a  few  fragments  remain,  such 
as  that  at  S.  Maria  Antiqua  (John  VII).  Only  in  Ravenna 
and  Thessalonica  can  this  early  type  be  studied.  In  Rome 
and  its  neighborhood  there  is  nothing  intact  earlier  than  the 
eleventh  century. 

After  the  time  of  Paschal  II  they  are  numerous  and  increas- 
ingly decorative.  Liturgy  seems  to  have  required  two  in  every 
church,  placed  in  the  upper  part  of  the  main  nave  on  opposite 
sides,  and  in  connection  with  the  choir-screen.  Often  the  seats 
for  the  choir-singers  were  run  along  ?±  the  foot  of  the  ambones, 
forming  their  basement  and  bringing  them  into  the  general 
design.     The  Popes  and  prelates  of  the  Renaissance  bore  a 


BASILICAS  175 

particular  grudge  against  this  part  of  the  mediaeval  liturgical 
scheme  and  ruthlessly  destroyed  the  entire  choral  structure 
including  the  ambones,  so  that  it  can  now  be  seen  only  in  S. 
Clemente  in  its  original  state  and  in  a  modern  restoration  from 
the  old  material  at  S.  ^Maria  in  Cosmedin,  both  of  the  twelfth 
century,  with  earlier  fragments. 

The  front  of  the  choir-screen  often  had  a  second  story  or 


Arnboue  at  S.  Maria  in  Cosmedin. 
(c.  1120.) 

iconostasic  screen,  like  the  English  wood  screens,  formed  of 
colonnettes  supporting  an  architrave  which  extended  across 
the  entire  nave.  It  served  to  support  the  hangings  that 
screened  the  altar  during  part  of  the  service.  It  has  been 
charmingly  reconstructed  at  S.  Maria  in  Cosmedin.  An  earlier 
example,  in  the  style  not  of  mosaic  inlay  but  of  Byzantine 
relief  work,  can  still  be  seen  at  Leprignano  (tenth  century)  near 
Eome,  but  none  so  early  exist  in  the  city  itself. 


176 


CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 


The  main  type  of  amboiie  or  pulpit  consisted  of  two  stair- 
cases leading  to  a  central  raised  platform.  Where  a  different, 
boxlike,  form  appears,  as  at  S.  Maria  in  Aracoeli  and  S. 
Cesareo,  the  old  pulpits  have  been  reconstructed  in  the  Renais- 
sance. Those  of  S.  Clemente,  S.  Lorenzo  and  Alba  Fucense 
represent  three  successive  stages  of  increasing  richness  from 
c.  1120  to  c.  1225.     The  second  pulpit,  standing  directly  op- 


Ambone  in  S.  Pietro  at  Alba  Fucense,  by  two  Roman  Artists 
(Pietro  and  Andrica.) 


posits  the  first,  was  often  of  the  simpler  type  with  a  single 
staircase,  of  which  an  early  form  appears  in  the  restored  am- 
bone  of  Ferentino.     At  S.  Lorenzo  they  are  transposed. 

Paschal  Candlestick.  —  The  earlier  paschal  candlesticks  which 
stood  beside  an  ambone  were  probably  of  metal,  and  shared 
the  fate  of  the  rest  of  this  class  of  church  furniture.  Of  ex- 
isting examples  none  antedate  the  marmorarii  of  the  twelfth 
century. 

They  were  placed  near  the  right-hand  ambone  in  the  scltbla 


BASILICAS 


177 


cantorum  or  choir,  and  there  was  only  one  in  each  church,  used 
mainly  for  the  Easter  ceremonies ;  hence  its  name. 

The  normal  type  was  a  large  twisted  column,  its  spirals 
filted  with  mosaic  patterns.     Sole  remnant  of  a  foreign  influ- 
ence on  the  school  is  the  candlestick  at  S.  Paolo,  which  two 
Roman  sculptors,  Nicolo  di  Angelo  and  Pietro 
Yassaletto,  carved  in  marble  in  the  second  half 
of  the  twelfth  century,  and  which  may  be  com- 
pared to  some  of  those  by  the  south  Italian 
schools,  at  Gaeta,  Palermo,  Capua,  etc. 

i^one  of  those  remaining  in  Roman  churches 
are  among  the  most  conspicuous  of  their  class, 
probably  because  those  of  the  larger  basilicas 
have  all  perished.  It  is  to  the  cities  of  the 
province  that  we  must  turn  for  the  largest 
examples,  standing  from  fifteen  to  twenty-five 
feet  high.  Such  are  those  of  the  cathedrals  of 
Ferentino,  Terracina  andAnagni.  The  earliest 
of  all  seems  also  to  be  in  the  province,  at  Cori. 

The  Anagni  candelabrum  is  crowned  by  a 
fascinating  boy  caryatid  and  is  signed  by  one 
of  the  Vassaletti.  That  of  Ferentino,  most 
colossal  of  all,  has  a  bewildering  variety  of 
mosaic  patterns ;  its  twelve  ascending  spirals, 
each  of  different  design,  all  change  their 
patterns  at  short  intervals  as  they  ascend. 

Several  of  those  in  the  churches  of  Rome 
itself  are  remarkable  for  beauty  if  not  for 
size.  Such  are  those  at  S.  Cecilia,  probably 
by  Arnolfo,  at  S.  Lorenzo  and  S.  Clemente,  — 
all  of  the  thirteenth  century. 

The  base  is  often  formed  of  a  plinth  resting 
on  a  couple  of  sphinxes,  crouching  side  by  side,  or  of  a  similar 
couple  of  lions  ;  at  other  times  the  base  is  simply  architectural. 

The  Southern  school,  especially  in  Campania,  produced  can- 
dlesticks of  very  similar  type,  except  that  they  used  the 
straight  more  frequently  than  the  spiral  shaft,  and  married 
the   mosaic   work   usually   to   a   certain  amount   of   carving. 


Mosaic       Paschal 
Candlestick     of 
Cathedral,  Ter- 
racina. 
(Twelfth  century.) 


178 


CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 


itlllll^ 


There  are  superb  examples  in  the  cathedrals  of  Salerno,  Sessa 
and  Palermo. 

Altar  Canopies  or  Ciboria.  —  The  Liher  Pontijicalis  describes 
some  of  the  early  ciboria  of  gold  or  silver  so  specifically  that 
it  is  possible  to  reproduce  them,  even  though  none  survive. 
Those  given  by  the  Emperors  from  Constantine  to  Honorius 

to  the  great  basilicas  were  par- 
ticularly superb,  and  were  re- 
ferred to  in  the  historical  survey. 
When  metal  work  was  aban- 
doned for  marble  in  the  seventh 
century,  the  more  modest  works 
of  this  age  of  poor  art  followed 
the  style  of  surface  geometrical 
decoration  in  low  relief,  and  the 
ciborium  was  usually  a  low  pyra- 
mid with  four  arcades  supported 
on  as  many  colonnettes.  Early 
Roman  examples  can  be  recon- 
structed from  such  fragments 
as  those  of  S.  Alessio  and  the 
Lateran  Museum ;  a  late  one, 
that  of  S.  Giovanni  in  Argen- 
tella  (eleventh  century)  is  by 
some  Konian  artist. 

Then,  in  the  eleventh  century, 
with  the  adoption  of  the  more 
classic  architrave  in  place  of  the 
arch,  there  came  a  change  in  the 
design  of  the  ciborium,  whose  corner  columns  upheld  four 
architraves.  The  simplest  form  appears  at  S.  Gregorio  in 
Rome  ;  the  next  stage  at  the  Benedictine  church  of  ^epi,  both 
earlier  than  1100  and  with  a  gable  roof.  The  type  of  the 
early  twelfth  century,  with  retreating  stories  and  pyramid 
above  the  lower  architrave,  was  crystallized  in  the  ciboria  made 
by  the  family  school  of  Paulus  and  his  sons,  of  which  that  in 
S.  Lorenzo  in  Rome  survives,  and  the  later  one  of  Ponzano.  In 
these  there  was  at  first  no  decorative  work  on  the  surface  of 


Ciborium  of  High  Altav.  Cathedral 
Ferentino,  by  Drudo. 


BASILICAS  179 

the  white  marble  except  an  occasional  cross  or  simple  band; 
but  the  ornamentation  was  constantly  on  the  increase,  until  in 
the  thirteenth  century  it  blossomed  into  such  superb  works 
as  the  ciboria  at  Anagni  by  the  Cosmati  and  that  of  Ferentino 
by  Drudo,  their  associate. 

The  designers  of  the  early  thirteenth  century  also  planned 
for  the  larger  churches  an  altar  canopy  of  heavier  design,  which 


Angle  of  Ciborium  at  Cathedral,  Ferentino,  by  Drudo. 

served  as  a  transition  to  the  still  more  elaborate  Gothic  taber- 
nacles. The  architrave  is  made  far  wider  and  more  elaborate, 
including  a  central  frieze,  and  it  supports,  not  a  row  of  slender 
shafts  on  M'hich  rests  another  architrave,  but  a  series  of  round- 
headed  arcades  from  which  rise  an  octagonal  roof  and  lantern 
similar  to  the  earlier  pattern. 

The  iinal  type  was  evolved  by  Arnolfo  and  continued  by 


180  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

Ms  pupil  Adeodato,  and  in  its  substitution  of  the  pointed  trefoil 
arch,  strikes  a  note  foreign  to  the  genuine  character  of  the 
Roman  school,  although  it  is  of  exquisite  beauty.  Its  best 
remaining  examples  are  described  elsewhere  ("  Sculpture  "). 

Altar.  —  The  form,  accessories  and  material  of  the  altar  in 
the  church  were  fundamentally  modified  by  the  cult  of  saints' 
relics,  by  the  theory  that  no  church  could  be  duly  consecrated 


Inside  of  Choir  Precinct  of  S.  Maria  in  Cosmedin,  reconstructed,  with 

Ambones  and  Inconostasis  and  the  Ciborium  of  Adeodato. 

(Twelfth  to  thirteenth  centuries.) 

unless  it  was  provided  with  such  relics.  They  were  always 
connected  with  the  altar  and  were  placed  either  inside  or  im- 
mediately beneath'  it.  This  led  to  the  change  from  an  open 
to  a  solid  altar,  from  a  table  to  a  box-like  structure.  It  was 
necessary  to  have  access  to  the  relics  by  means  of  an  opening 
in  the  side  of  the  altar  facing  the  church ;  this  was  called  the 
fenestrella  confessionis,  and  became  the  decorative  centre  of 


BASILICAS 


181 


this  face  which  often  extended  downward  toward  the  confes- 
sion or  merely  broke  the  line  of  steps  leading  to  the  apse.  In 
the  later  Koman  school  the  altar,  which  had  earlier  been  a  plain 
structure  hung  with  woven  frontals  or  ante-pendia  of  gold 
or  silver  gilt,  became  decorated  structurally  with  the  mosaic 
patterns  that  were  lavished  everywhere. 

Apse.  —  The  apse  remained  extremely  simple,  both  within 
and  without,  more  consistently  so  than  in  any  other  school. 


Ciboviuiu  of  High  Altar  at  S.  Elia,  near  Nepi. 
(Tenth  or  eleventh  century.) 

The  single  termination  was  the  rule  until  the  eighth  century, 
when  the  sacristies  on  either  side  were  first  changed  into  side 
apses.  The  earliest  triple  apse  recorded  is  that  of  S.  Maria 
in  Cosmedin,  probably  due  to  Hadrian  I  (c.  790).  But  the  in- 
novation never  became  popular.  At  Ravenna,  the  outside  wall 
of  the  apse  had  become  polygonal;  in  Rome  it  never  varied 


^• 


182 


CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 


^^ 


from  the  simple  curved  outline.  Neither  was  there  any  inva- 
sion from  Lombardy  or  Tuscany  of  the  use  of  real  or  false 
galleries  and  arcades.  The  one  exception  is  SS.  Giovanni 
e  Paolo,  where  the  twelfth-century  apse  has  a  Lombard  gallery 
to  which  there  originally  corresponded  one  on  the  inside 
wall. 

"  The  only  variation  from  this  type  was  an  early  one,  and  all 
traces  of  it  have  now  disappeared.  This  was  the  open  apse : 
a  form  in  which  the  lower  part  was  opened  up  by  a  line  of 


Altar  and  Confessio  of  Relics  at  S.  Alessandro. 
(Fourth  century.) 


arcades  into  a  surrounding  portico  or  adjoining  structure,  in 
which  it  was  often  the  custom  to  place  the  matrons  of  the 
congregation,  who  thus  were  at  the  opposite  end  of  the  church 
from  the  rest  of  the  congregation,  beyond  the  clergy  in  the  apse 
and  transept  This  arrangement  existed  at  S.  John  Lateran, 
S.  Maria  Maggiore,  SS.  Cosma  e  Damiano,  S.  Sebastiano  and 
perhaps  at  S.  Lorenzo  to  connect  with  the  second  basilica. 
There  were  never  any  radiating  chapels  from  the  apse/  nor 


BASILICAS 


183 


was  there  ever  any  prolongation  of  the  apsidal  wall  beyond 
the  semicircle. 

The  only  relief  to  the  plain,  unadorned  brick  surface  was 
the  frieze  of  bricks  in  the  form  of  pointed  ovoids  and  the  row 
of  consols  or  brackets  of  stone  often  carved,  as  at  S.  Martino 
(sixth  century)  and  S.  Bartolommeo  (eleventh  century). 

One  sporadic  attempt  at  least  was  made  to  relieve  this 
monotony.  It  was  at  S.  Maria  Maggiore,  where  a  series  of 
mosaic  pictures  were  placed  on  the  outside  of  the  apse  when 
the  mosaics  of  facade  and  inner  apse  were  executed,  c.  1300. 
They  were  destroyed  during  the  Renaissance. 


Altar  and  Confessio  of  S. 


,iiBiiiiiiiiiiiii(i'i"""": 

Velabio. 


(Seventh  to  twelfth  centuries.) 

Principal  Existing  Basilicas.  —  The  churches  have  been  in 
nearly  every  case  mentioned  in  their  chronological  order  in 
Part  I.  The  finest  early  group  is  that  of  S.  Maria  Maggiore 
(fourth  century),  S.  Sabina  (fifth  century),  S.  Pietro  in  Vincoli 
and  S.  Martino  (V-VI  centuries).  The  lesser  counterpart  to 
this  for  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries  is  S.  Clemente,  S. 
Lorenzo,  S.  Maria  in  Trastevere  and  S.  Crisogono.  Nearly  all 
those  which  preserve  mediaeval  features  are  enumerated  at 
the  end  of  this  volume. 

Their  interiors  must  not  be  judged  by  their  modern  condi- 
tion, even  where  they  have  been  least  changed,  because  the 


184  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

destruction  of   their  rich  furniture   has   afflicted  them  with 
unnatural  nudity. 

At  the  same  time  it  may  be  as  well  frankly  to  acknowledge 
what  may  be  considered  the  shortcomings  of  the  building  as 
a  work  of  art,  especially  as  regards  the  exterior,  which  lacks 


Giovanni  e  Paolo  (apse)  with  Roman  House  and  Street  on  Cajlian. 


picturesqueness  and  impressive  height.  The  use  of  brick  with- 
out even  the  help  of  moulded  terra-cotta  bars  out  the  rich  effects 
of  heavy  mouldings  in  windows  and  doors.  The  church  is 
low  and  plain  in  outline,  without  those  central  and  grouped 
towers,  without  the  lofty  vaulting,  that  make  such  churches 


BASILICAS  185 

as  the  Rhenish  cathedrals  and  those  of  Central  and  Northern 
France  so  striking. 

Architectural  Puzzles.  —  An  interesting  and  intricate  archi- 
tectural puzzle  is  S.  Maria  in  Cosmedin.  Originally  a  hall 
church  in  the  ancient  Statio  Annonce,  or  grain  market,  trans- 
formed for  that  purpose,  with  many  columns  and  considerable 
late  Roman  decoration  untouched ;  it  was  changed  by  Hadrian 

I  (771-795)  into  a  three-aisled  church  with  three  apses.  As 
a  concession  to  its  Greek  congregation  a  matroneum  or  women's 
gallery  was  built  over  the  side-aisles,  for  with  the  Greeks  it 
was  not  the  custom  to  place  the  women  below  with  the  men. 
The  columns  then  supported  architraves.     But  when  Calixtus 

II  (1119-1124)  remodelled  the  church,  the  Greek  congregation 
with  its  special  needs  had  vanished,  so  the  gallery  was  closed 
up  and  the  mechanical  feat  was  performed  of  substituting 
arcades  for  the  architraves  of  the  nave.  The  irregularities  of 
the  arcade  spacings  and  the  piers  are  part  of  the  penalty  for 
the  use  of  an  old  building.  The  choir  precinct  has  recently 
been  reconstructed  as  it  was  in  the  twelfth  century,  and  is 
extremely  rich  and  charming,  as  our  illustration  shows  (p.  180). 

An  even  more  interesting  puzzle  is  the  double  basilica  of 
S.  Lorenzo.  It  is  too  intricate  to  unravel  here.  I  shall  merely 
mention  the  great  probability  that  the  supposedly  early  archi- 
traves of  the  nave  are  not  of  the  Jifih  century,  nor  yet  of  the 
thirteenth  century,  but  were  substituted  for  mediaeval  arcades, 
by  a  Barocco  prelate.  Its  capitals  are  not  antique,  but  are 
works  of  the  thirteenth  century,  as  is  the  cornice  with  its 
corbels,  —  all  by  Vassallettus,  who  built  the  porch.  The  sub- 
ject of  the  mosaic  on  the  triumphal  arch,  reproduced  on  p.  280, 
is  one  that  is  invariably  confined  to  the  apse,  and  its  unique 
presence  here  proves  that  the  two  basilicas  were  tfirown  to- 
gether, not  as  has  been  universally  believed,  in  the  thirteenth 
century  by  Honorius  III,  but  650  years  before  under  Pelagius  II. 

At  S.  Prassede  the  great  arcades  spanning  the  nave  and 
their  piers,  instead  of  being,  as  generally  supposed,  a  part  of 
the  ninth-century  church,  were  not  added  until  the  seventeenth 
or  eighteenth  century. 

Another  class  of  peculiarities  is  that  relating  to  irregulari- 


186  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

ties  of  plan  and  structure.  Quite  often  the  two  side-aisles 
vary  very  considerably  in  width  and  the  lines  of  columns  are 
not  parallel,  giving  a  greater  width  at  one  end  than  the  other. 
It  is  difficult  to  say  whether  this  is  ever  done  by  design  or 
always  through  carelessness. 

Architectural  Anomalies.  —  There  are  also  in  Rome  a  few 
architectural  anomalies.     Some  of  these  are  due,,  quite  natu- 


Interior  of  SS.  Vinceiizo  vd  Anastasi 
(Seventh  to  twelfth  centuries.) 


rally,  to  the  use  of  ancient  buildings.     At  S.  Croce  in  Gerusa- 
lemme  the  very  wide  apse  is  due  to  the  fact  that  it  was  origi- 
nally a  hall,  and  that  the  two  rows  of  columns  were  late  additions. 
S.  Balbina  has  always  remained  quite  unique  as  a  hall  church. 
More  interesting,  because  free  and  intentional,  are  the  few 


BASILICAS 


187 


cases  of  the  use  of  square  piers  instead  of  columns  as  internal 
supports.  They  appear  in  three  very  early  buildings,  the 
basilicas  of  Pammachius  at  Porto  (c.  398  a.d.),  of  S.  Petronilla 
and  of  S.  Sinforosa  on  the  Via  Tiburtina,  of  about  the  same 
period.  But  the  only  important  use  of  the  pier  is  at  SS.  Yin- 
cenzo  ed  Anastasio.  It  was  built  by  Houorius  I,  c.  625;  re- 
stored or  rebuilt  by  Hadrian  I  and  Leo  III  in  782-796 ;  again 


luterior  of  S.  Maria  sopra  Minerva. 


rebuilt  by  Innocent  II  in  1128  for  S.  Bernard  and  decorated 
and  consecrated  by  Honorius  III  in  1221.  I  should  attribute 
the  use  of  the  piers  and  the  severe  simplicity  of  the  interior 
to  the  influence  of  S.  Bernard's  Burgundian  Cistercian  monks, 
who  were  placed  in  charge  of  the  monastery.  This  would 
account  for  its  un-Roman  character. 

A  hnal  anomaly  appears  at  the  very  close  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  when  Gothic  design  was  breaking  into  Rome,  The 
charming  chapel  at  the  Lateran,  the  Sancta  Sanctorum,  I  have 


Campanile  of  S.  Maria  in  Cosmedin. 
(Beginning  of  twelfth  century.) 


BASILICAS  189 

already  referred  to,  but  the  only  clinrch  which  shows  a  per- 
fectly consistent  interior  of  pointed  architecture,  is  S.  Maria 
sopra  Minerva.  Here  are  the  high  pointed  arches,  the  grouped 
piers,  the  ribbed  pointed  vaults,  such  as  we  see  at  this  time 
throughout  Italy.  So  we  are  not  surprised  to  find  that  it  was 
not  built  by  Roman  artists,  but  by  two  Tuscan  Dominican 
monks  who  came  down  from  Florence  to  supervise  its  construc- 
tion for  their  monastic  order,  beginning  it  in  1280.  The  way 
in  which  it  was  built  is  a  striking  instance  of  the  generosity  of 
the  great  Roman  families  to  whom  I  have  alluded  as  patrons 
of  art.  The  Savelli  built  the  choir;  the  Gaetani,  the  great 
arch ;  Cardinal  Torrecremata,  the  nave ;  the  Orsini,  the  fagade; 
and  others  divided  up  the  transept  and  aisles. 

The  rival  order  of  St.  Francis  introduced  quite  timidly  some 
Gothic  features  in  their  main  sanctuary  of  S.  IMaria  in  Aracoeli 
and  other  minor  structures,  but  they  were  not  fundamental. 

Until  the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages,  Rome  retained,  there- 
fore, her  basilical  style  for  church  architecture,  almost  totally 
unaffected  by  the  changes  that  were  being  introduced  every- 
where else,  even  in  her  own  province. 


CAMPANILI    OR   BELL-TOWERS 

Each  Italian  school  of  art  affixed  its  particular  seal  to  its 
church  towers,  and  Eome  stands  in  the  front  rank,  by  the  side 
of  the  Lombard  and  the  Tuscan  schools,  for  the  number  and 
beauty  of  its  towers.     It  is  not  derived  from  either. 

Roman  towers  have  the  usual  Italian  peculiarity  of  position. 
They  are  independent  structures,  not  woven  into  the  general 
design  of  the  church,  as  in  the  architecture  of  Central  and 
Northern  Europe,  but  standing  aloof  or  resting  against  the 
outer  wall  of  the  church.  They  follow  no  rule.  Sometimes 
they  are  planted  squarely  in  front  of  the  faqade,  as  at  the 
cathedral  of  Anagni  and  SS.  Giovanni  e  Paolo  in  Rome. 
They  more  ordinarily  stand  against  the  wall  of  the  nave,  flush 
with  the  facade ;  either  on  the  left,  as  at  S.  Giorgio  in  Vela- 
bro,  or  on  the  right,  as  at  S.  Cecilia,  S.  Maria  in  Cosmedin  and 
S.  Alessio.  In  one  case,  at  the  SS.  Quattro  Coronati,  the  tower 
even  surmounted  the  centre  of  the  portal  leading  into  the 
atrium  in  front  of  the  church,  while  in  S.  Maria  ad  Pineam  it 
forms  part  of  the  right  side  of  the  fagade. 

There  was  never  more  than  a  single  tower.  Such  exceptions 
as  the  two  towers  flanking  the  transept  of  S.  John  Lateran 
seem  the  work  of  foreign  architects  and  mere  accidents. 

This  Roman  single  tower  has  something  compelling  and 
attractive  in  its  symmetry  and  simplicity.  It  has  not  the 
rugged  heaviness  of  Lombard  campanili.  As  a  rule  it  is  of 
brick  and  only  occasionally  and  outside  of  Rome  itself  is 
stone  substituted.  It  is  not  surmounted  by  battlements  as  in 
Tuscany,  nor  by  spires  as  in  some  parts  of  Lombardy,  but 
by  a  low  peaked  roof  hardly  apparent  from  below.  When  an 
occasional  spire  appears,  as  at  S.  Maria  Maggiore  and  S.  John 
Lateran,  it  is  late  and  due  to  foreign  influence.  Slenderer  in 
its  proportions  than  those  of  these  two  schools,  it  has  neither 

190 


CAMPANILI  OR  BELL-TOWERS  191 

the  sombre  and  heavy  impressiveness  of  Lombardy  nor  the 
brilliant  coloring  of  Tuscany. 

There  are  critics  who  date  some  of  the  existing  campanili 
to  a  period  before  the  revival  of  the  eleventh  century.  There 
were  certainly  towers  during  the  Carlovingian  era  and  even 
earlier ;  witness  that  built  by  Pope  Stephen  in  the  eighth 
century  in  the  atrium  of  S.  Peter's.  But,  in  my  opinion,  no 
campanile  is  earlier  than  the  middle  of  the  eleventh  century. 

One  of  the  earliest  of  which  there  is  an  authentic  record  is 
not  in  Rome  itself,  but  at  the  monastery  of  Subiaco,  where  all 
the  art  was  that  of  the  Roman  school.  Here  both  a  contem- 
porary inscription  and  an  early  chronicle  attribute  to  Abbot 
Humbert  (1052)  the  building  of  the  campanile  at  S.  Scolastica, 
which  while  in  stone  is  of  the  orthodox  Roman  type,  and  was 
doubtless  by  no  means  the  earliest  example  of  it.  A  number 
of  the  Roman  campanili  can  be  dated  with  certainty  or  prob- 
ability, and  I  will  here  give  a  partial  list  of  them :  — 

S.  Prassede .  c.  1080 

•  S.  Maria  ad  Pineam c.  1090 

SS.  Quattro  Coronati,  Paschal  II     .         .         .  c.  1113 

S.  Maria  in  Cosmedin,  Calixtus  II  .         .         .  c.  1123 

S.  Crisogono,  Calixtus  II  .         .         .         .  c.  1125 

S.  Giorgio  in  Velabro  (?)  ....  early  XII 

S.  Maria  in  Trastevere,  Innocent  II  .         .  c.  1139 

S.  Croce  in  Gerusalemme,  Lucius  II         .         .  c.  1144 

4  SS.  Giovanni  e  Paolo,  Hadrian  IV  .         .         .  c.  1157 

S.  Francesca  Romana,  (=  S.  Maria  Nuova)      .  c.  1140-1160 

S.  Pudentiana mid.  XII 

S.  Eustachio c.  1190 

S.  Lorenzo  f.  le  m.  Clement  III        .  .  c.  1190 

S.  Silvestro  in  Capite,  Celestine  III         .         .  c.  1195 
S.  Maria  Maggiore   .         .         .         .      c.  1125  and  1376 

S.  John  Lateran c.  1360 

The  most  symmetrical  and  slender  of  early  Roman  cam- 
panili are  those  of  S.  Pudentiana  and  S.  Maria  in  Cosmedin, 
both    perfect    examples    of    brick    construction.       Close    to 


192 


CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 


them  in  point  of  beauty  are  those  of  SS.  Giovanni  e  Paolo, 
S.  Cecilia,  S.  Croce  in  Gerusalemrae,  S.  Alessio  and  S.  Fran- 
cesca  Roraana.  Particularly  heavy  in  its  proportions  is 
S.  Giorgio  in  Velabro.  The  crudest  workmanship  is  shown 
in  SS.  Quattro  Coronati. 


S.  (iiorii^io  in  Velabro. 
(Twelfth  century.) 


In  the  matter  of  openings  there  was  not  much  difference 
between  this  school  and  those  of  other  Italian  provinces  except 
in  the  greater  proportion  of  voids  to  solids  which  helped  the 
effect  of  lightness.  The  lower  story  or  two  had  a  one-light 
opening ;  the  next  a  two-light  window  usually  divided  by  a 
square  brick  pier ;  then  followed  stories  of  either  one  three- 
light  window  or  two  two-light  windows,  with  marble  sh^'fts. 


CAMPANILI  OR  BELL-TOWERS 


193 


The  capitals  of  these  shafts  do  not  ordinarily  belong  to  any 
order,  but  are  of  simple  cubic  form  —  mere  plinths.  The  divi- 
sion between  the  stories  is  made  by  a  cornice  of  simple  mould- 
ings above  a  row  of  the  customary  diagonal  cuneiform  bricks 
and  with  sometimes  a  row  of  dentils.  In  a  few  cases  the 
trimmings  and  mouldings  are  of 
stone,  as  at  S.  Cosimato,  where 
there  is  a  moulded  travertine 
cornice. 

An  attempt  at  further  decora- 
tive effects  is  often  made  by  the 
insertion  in  the  masonry,  at  in- 
tervals, above  the  windows,  of 
disks  of  porphyry  or  serpentine 
such  as  w^ere  used  in  the  pave- 
ments and  church  furniture, 
and  occasionally,  even,  of  the 
brilliantly  glazed  Moorish 
plates,  which  were  more  com- 
mon farther  East  and  on  the 
"  Adriatic.  Such  disks  are  used 
at  SS.  Giovanni  e  Paolo  very 
effectively.  It  is  a  custom 
found  in  other  schools,  e.g.  in 
Romagna  (Pomposa). 

The  area  of  diffusion  of  this 
style  of  campanili  was  less 
wide  and  general  than  that  of 
the  internal  decorative  work.  It  was  a  peculiarity  common, 
as  we  have  seen,  to  most  of  the  architectural  features  of  the 
school  which  were  based  on  brick  construction  and  which  were 
consequently  modified  in  those  parts  of  the  Roman  province 
where  brick  was  replaced  by  stone.  In  towns  as  near  as 
Tivoli,  Albano  and  Velletri,  the  resemblance  is  maintained 
well-nigh  intact.  The  campanile  of  S.  Maria  del  Trivio  at 
Velletri  is  a  superb  example  of  a  late  date.  But  already  at 
Anagni  considerable  independence  is  shown,  and  at  the 
southernmost  boundary,  Terracina,  while  the  porch  and  furni- 


Campanili  of  Catluilial.  Ttiraeina. 


194  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

ture  of  the  cathedral  are  strictly  Roman,  the  tower  is  of  a 
special  type,  which  I  have  not  seen  duplicated  elsewhere,  with 
a  rich  facing  of  false  pointed  arches.  Plain  early  examples  are 
at  S.  Elia,  Nepi,  and  the  cathedral  of  Civita  Castellan  a.  In 
the  Sabina  are  the  campanili  of  S.  Giovanni  in  Argentella  at 
Palombara,  and  S.  Pietro  at  Montebono,  of  pure  Roman  type. 
Among  these  out-of-town  works  the  campanile  of  S.  Maria  del 
Trivio  is  isolated,  and  was  finished  in  1353.  It  is  35  m.  high, 
and  is  built  in  alternate  courses  of  tufa,  of  selce  and  of  bricks, 
giving  it  a  polychromatic  effect.  The  windows  are  round- 
headed  below  and  pointed  above. 

The  even  higher  cathedral  tower  of  Viterbo  (40  m.)  is  also 
polychromatic,  but  by  different  means,  by  alternate  light  and 
dark  courses  of  travertine  and  peperino  stone.  The  Gothic  de- 
tails of  this  part  are  of  the  thirteenth  century,  but  the  lower 
part  of  the  tower,  entirely  of  peperino,  is  earlier. 

Of  the  campanili  in  Kome  itself,  one  typical  of  the  average 
sort  is  that  of  S.  Maria  in  Trastevere.  It  is  36  m.  high,  and 
built  entirely  of  brick,  even  to  the  cornices.  Only  the  coupled 
columns  and  their  plinths  and  the  cornice  brackets  are  of  white 
marble. 

The  tower  of  the  cathedral  of  Gaeta  (1158)  is  a  signed 
masterpiece  by  the  Roman  Niccolo  d'  Angelo. 


CLOISTERS 

The  school  showed  even  greater  originality  in  the  develop- 
ment of  a  new  type  of  cloister.  This  was  natural  because  its 
strong  point  was  not  construction,  but  outline,  proportion  and 
decorative  effectiveness ;  and  these  qualities  can  be  made  to 
shine  nowhere  more  brilliantly  than  in  such  a  structure  as  the 
cloister. 

Beginning  with  examples  that  are  not  radically  different 
from  those  in  other  parts  of  Italy,  the  type  was  fully  evolved 
in  Rome  before  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century,  and  was 
recognized  in  other  parts  of  Italy  as  a  Roman  invention. 
When  such  a  cloister  was  erected  in  1229  at  Sassovivo,  in 
Umbria,  it  was  called  an  opus  roinanum.  Travel  as  we  will 
over  Italy,  we  can  find  none  like  them,  even  though  some 
points  of  similarity  seem  to  appear  in  such  cloisters  as  that 
of  Monreale  near  Palermo. 

The  characteristics  of  the  cloisters  of  the  developed  type 
were  :  the  retention  of  the  round  arch,  when  the  pointed  arch 
was  invading  architecture  quite  generally  ;  the  use  of  an  ex- 
ceeding variety  of  design  in  the  coupled  shafts  that  sustained 
the  arcades  and  in  their  capitals;  the  assimilation  of  classic 
details  in  the  sculptured  ornament  and  the  mouldings  ;  the  ap- 
plication of  stuccoed  ornament  and  of  mosaic  inlay  to  friezes, 
cornices,  architraves,  arches  and  colonnettes.  The  result  was 
brilliant  in  color  and  delicate  in  design. 

This  exquisite  type  was  a  gradual  growth.  The  earliest 
cloisters  in  Rome  to  which  we  can  assign  an  approximate  date 
stand  really  at  the  opposite  poie  of  artistic  expression,  in  a 
heavy  simplicity  characteristic  of  early  Romanesque.  No 
class  of  works  of  art  in  Rome  is  as  little  known  as  the  cloisters 
earlier  than  the  two  spectacular  examples  of  the  Lateran  and 
S.  Paolo,  though  nowhere  else  in  the  world  does  such  a  group 

196 


196  CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  MONUMENTS 

of  cloisters  exist.  The  universal  ignorance  has  a  good  reason. 
Some  belong  to  nuns  and  require  the  special  permit  of  the  tit- 
ular cardinal.  This  is  so  at  S.  Cecilia.  I  believe  myself  to 
have  been  the  first  archaeologist  to  know  of  its  existence. 
The  same  was  until  recently  the  case  at  S.  Cosimato,  before 
its  restoration.  The  difficulty  connected  with  S.  Sabina  is 
that  it  is  now  part  of  a  hospital  for  incurable  diseases. 
Here  follows  a  list :  — 

S.  Prassede c.  1080  (?) 

SS.  Quattro  Coronati  .         .         .         .         .  c.  1113 

SS.  Vincenzo  ed  Anastasio  alle  Tre  Fontane      .  1130-1140 

S.  Francesca  Romana  (S.  =  Maria  N.)      .         .  c.  1140-1160 

S.  Cecilia  in  Trastevere c.  1150-1160 

S.  Lorenzo  fuori  le  mura 1188-1191 

S.  Cosimato  in  Trastevere  .         .         .         .  c.  1190-1200 

S.  Paolo  — Early  part  by  Pietro  di  Capua        .  c.  1205-1210 

S.  Sisto 1198-1222 

S.  Sabina .  1216-1218 

S.  Giovanni  in  Laterano c.  1220-1228 

S.  Paolo  —  Later  part  by  Magister  Petrus        .  c.  1230 

S.  Maria  in  Aracceli    .  .         .         .         .  c.  1200-1260 

Cloisters  by  Roman  Artists  Elsewhere 

Subiaco  —  Early  part  by  Jacobus       .         .         .     c.   1200 

Sassovivo c.   1228 

Subiaco  —  Later  part  by  Cosmas       .         .         .     c.   1229 

The  earliest  of  all  the  extant  cloisters  is  the  one  at  S.  Pras- 
sede, where  an  inscription  once  existed  stating  it  to  be  built  by 
Cardinal  Benedict  under  Gregory  VII  (1073-1086).  It  is  small 
and  primitive.  Of  greater  importance  is  that  of  the  SS. 
Quattro  Coronati,  which  we  may  consider  to  be  part  of  the  total 
reconstruction  begun  by  Paschal  II  in  1112.  It  has  all  the 
earmarks  of  the  style  of  Paulus,  the  probable  head  decorator 
for  this  Pope.  It  is  built  of  marble  and  is  far  in  advance  of 
its  age,  I^I'ot withstanding  Renaissance  restorations  that  have 
affected  the  basement,  added  retaining  piers  and  enlarged  some 
openings,  its  condition    is    substantially  original.     The  plan 


CLOISTERS 


197 


is  quite  oblong  and  the  sides  all  curve  toward  the  centre  in 
plan,  giving  an  appearance  of  increased  length  and  grace. 
The  heavy  cornice  is  characteristic  of  Paschal  II,  and  between 
the  corbels  are  mosaics  in  the  simple  patterns  of  white  and 
verde  antique  marble,  without  any  admixture  of  artificial  cubes. 
This  is  like  all  the  work  of  Paulus. 

The  only  breaks  in  the  stretch  of  arcades  is  by  means  of  a 
marble  pier  Avith  pilaster  strips  in  the  centre  of  each  short  side; 


Cloister  of  S.  Lorenzo. 
(Late  twelfth  century.) 

and  by  a  doorway  framed  by  two  marble  piers  with  pilasters 
in  the  centre  of  each  long  side.  The  tunnel  vaults  over  the 
galleries  are  Renaissance  additions.  What  is  especially  re- 
markable is  that  the  columns  are  coupled,  a  peculiarity  that 
does  not  recur  again  until  c.  1200  at  S.  Cosimato.  Of 
course  this  gives  a  greater  lightness  of  eifect.  It  shows 
Paulus  as  an  originator. 

Not  long  after.  Innocent  II  (1130-1143)  rebuilt  the  monastery 
of  SS.  Vincenzo  ed  Anastasio  for  S.  Bernard's  Cistercians, 
and  the  cloister  seems  of  this    period,  except  the  north  side. 


198  CLASSIFICATION   OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

where  the  columns  are  slenderer  and  uniform  with  Ionic 
bases.  On  the  east  side,  where  the  second  story  is  of  mixed 
brick  and  stone,  the  arcades  are  more  primitive  and  irregular, 
with  the  bases  all  different,  shafts  heavier  and  not  uniform, 
the  capitals  roughly  cubic  with  heavy  oblong  plinths.  On 
all  sides  the  columns  are  single,  not  coupled.  It  is  barely 
possible  that  this  part  is  considerably  older,  perhaps  Carlo- 
vingian.  The  constructive  scheme  is  to  divide  each  group 
of  four  arcades  by  a  heavy  square  pier,  from  which  springs 
a  high  blind  arcade  which  takes  the  weight  of  the  second- 
story  wall  off  of  the  small  arcades  that  it  encloses.  There 
were  six  of  these  groups  on  each  of  the  three  sides ;  the 
fourth  side  of  the  quadrangle  was  formed  by  the  church 
wall  and  was  not  arcaded.  This  alone  shows  a  very  primi- 
tive scheme.  The  west  corridor  is  covered  by  a  tunnel 
vault;  the  others  by  groin  vaults  corresponding  to  the  piers. 
!N"othing  could  be  plainer  and  heavier  than  this  cloister, 
stylistically,  if  not  chronologically,  the  earliest  in  Eome.  It 
is  quite  impressive  from  its  size. 

Attached  to  S.  Cecilia  in  Trastevere  is  an  almost  unknown 
cloister  of  moderate  size,  which  has  recently  undergone  a 
painful  whitewashing  and  restoration,  but  is  structurally  in 
fair  preservation,  and  apparently  contemporary  with  the 
church  porch,  some  time  after  the  middle  of  the  twelfth 
century.  The  columns  of  white  marble  are  not  coupled,  and 
rest  directly,  without  bases,  on  a  common  basement  or  stylo- 
bate.  The  brick  arches  are  narrow  and  low,  but  less  heavy, 
and  the  walls  are  less  thick  than  at  the  Tre  Fontane.  There 
is  no  ornamentation.  The  capitals  are  plinth-like  and  uncut 
except  along  the  edges. 

More  interesting  and  somewhat  more  advanced  is  the  large 
cloister  attached  to  S.  Lorenzo  fuori  le  mura.  One  sign  of  prog- 
ress is  the  use  of  coupled  in  place  of  single  shafts  to  flank 
the  central  arches  or  doorways  in  each  bay  of  the  four  gal- 
leries. The  walls  are  still  of  plain  brickwork,  the  arches  still 
merely  varied  by  plain  projecting  archivolts,  the  capitals  still 
plain  plinths,  and  the  baseless  shafts  still  rest  directly  on  the 
continuous  basement.     The  shape  is  oblong,  the  longer  sides 


CLOISTERS  199 

having  three  groups  of  arcades  divided  by  piers ;  the  shorter 
sides  only  two.  Where  not  broken  by  doors  or  large  arcades, 
each  division  has  five  supports  with  six  arches.  The  long  sides 
measure  20.45  m.,  the  short  sides  13.60  m.,  and  the  width  of 
the  corridor  is  3.75.  This  is  a  fair  average  size.  The  columns 
are  1.65  m.  high,  and  the  intercolumniation  is  .71^  m.  Part 
of  the  second  story,  with  brickwork  and  windows  in  the  same 
style  as  the  lower  story,  is  preserved.  This  is  particularly 
valuable ;  practically  a  unique  case  in  Rome,  where  the  question 
of  the  second  story  of  the  different  cloisters  is  one  of  contro- 
versy. The  restoration  of  this  second  story  might  partly 
counterbalance  the  horrible  vandalism  that  almost  ruined  the 
basilica  under  Pius  IX,  in  a  so-called  restoration,  almost  as 
barbarous  as  that  which  under  Leo  XIII  completed  the  destruc- 
tion of  S.  John  Lateran. 

In  about  1200  the  school  seems  to  have  felt  the  influence  of 
the  French  architects  from  Burgundy  who  had  come  in  as 
members  of  the  Cistercian  order,  settling  in  the  great  monas- 
teries of  the  order  near  Rome  at  SS.  Vincenzo  ed  Anastasio, 
Fossanuova,  Casamari,  Yalvisciolo  and  elsewhere.  It  was 
natural  that  in  so  important  a  feature  of  monastic  architecture 
as  the  cloister,  these  French  monks,  with  their  knowledge  of 
the  beautiful  examples  in  their  own  country  and  their  compe- 
tence as  specialists,  should  teach  something  to  the  Roman 
artists.  The  Cistercian  cloisters  in  all  these  monasteries,  as 
well  as  at  Viterbo  and  elsewhere,  show  what  their  artistic  type 
was  between  about  1175  and  1225,  and  how  they  themselves 
developed  from  Romanesque  simplicity  to  Gothic  splendor  and 
variety.  But,  though  Roman  artists  are  seen  to  have  worked 
with  them,  as  when  they  decorated  with  mosaic  work  the 
portal  of  Fossanova,  and  though  these  Romans  appear  to  have 
borrowed  from  the  Cistercians  some  types  of  Gothic  capitals, 
the  chief  debt  they  owe  is  a  greater  firmness  of  outline,  an 
improved  sense  of  proportion  and  a  greater  delicacy  in  the 
handling  of  sculptural  details.  They  assimilated  methods  and 
principles,  but  did  not  copy.  This  is  quite  clear  from  a  com- 
parison of  Cistercian  and  Roman  cloisters. 

A  second  influence  was  introduced  from   the    Campanian 


200  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

school  by  Pietro  di  Capua,  who  was  both  abbot  of  the  monas- 
tery of  S.  Paul  and  first  architect  of  its  cloister,  who  applied 
some  mosaic  ornamentation  to  its  surfaces  and  began  a  veri- 
table revolution. 

The  first  results  of  the  advance  appear  in  the  cloisters  of  S. 
Sabina  and  S.  Cosimato  in  Rome  and  of  the  monastery  at 
Subiaco.  In  these  works  of  the  two  decades  before  and  after 
1200,  we  find  a  return  of  the  use  of  the  coupled  shafts  under 


Cloister  of  S.  Cosimato. 
(End  of  twelfth  century.) 

a  single  plinth,  which  was  to  be  henceforth  the  rule  throughout 
Italy.  They  were  far  slenderer  than  the  early  shafts  at  SS. 
Quattro  Coronati  and  of  quite  a  different  style. 

S.  Cosimato  had  the  largest  cloisters  in  Kome,  but  the  work- 
manship is  careless  and  uneven.  It  marks  the  transition  from 
the  older  style,  and  may  still  be  earlier  than  1200  except  on 
the  north  side,  which  shows  more  careful  work  of  the  early 
thirteenth  century.  Its  columns  number  not  far  from  two 
hundred  and  fifty,  as  there  are  thirty-two  coupled  shafts  on 


CLOISTERS 


201 


each  side.  On  the  N.  and  on  part  of  the  W.  side  the  capitals 
are  of  delicate  loftiform  shape^  the  forerunners  of  those  at  S. 
Sabina.  Inartistic  restoration,  both  ancient  and  modern,  has 
injured  this  cloister  as  much  as  it  has  that  of  S.  Cecilia. 

The  monastery  of  S.  Sabina  was  given  by  Honorius  to  S. 
Dominic  as  the  home  of  his  order  in  Rome,  soon  after  the  Papal 
authorization.  This  was  in  1216.  This  is  about  the  date  of 
the  cloister.     Its  arcades  are  in  groups  of  four,  separated  by 


Cloister  at  Monastery  of  S.  Scolastica,  Subiaco. 


piers,  the  arcades  being  supported  by  shafts  grouped  in  an  un- 
usual way,  the  central  support  in  each  bay  being  formed  by  two 
shafts  flanked  on  each  side  by  a  single  colonnette.  The  foli^ 
ated  capitals  of  a  type  similar  to  those  at  S.  Cosimato,  but 
better  handled,  are  varied  by  a  simpler,  broader  type.  He  also 
substituted  marble  for  brick,  which  had  still  been  used  at  S. 
Cosimato  in  the  arcades  and  entire  outsides  of  the  galleries. 
The  cloister  at  Subiaco  epitomizes  the  changes  during  this 


202  CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  MONUMENTS 

short  period  that  ushers  in  the  golden  age.  It  was  the  work  of 
three  generations  of  artists  of  the  family  of  Cosmas.  One  side 
was  the  work  of  the  second  head  of  this  family  school,  Jacobus, 
son  of  Lanrentius,  before  the  close  of  the  twelfth  century,  and 
in  careful  workmanship  was  far  superior  to  anything  the  school 
had  yet  done.  He  went  farther  than  the  architect  of  S.  Lo- 
renzo in  his  use  of  coupled  shafts,  alternating  them  with  single 
ones,  and  giving  each  one  a  base.    He  signed  himself  here :  — 

MAGISTEK  lACOBUS  ROMAn(us)  FECIT  HOC  OP(us) 

The  three  other  sides  of  the  cloister  were  completed,  evi- 
dently many  years  later,  c.  1225-1235,  by  his  son  and  grand- 
sons, who  sign  themselves:  — 

COSMAS  ET  FILII  LUC(AS)  ET  JAC(oBUS)  Al(tER) 
ROMAXI  GIVES  IN  MARMORIS  ARTE  PERITI  HOC  OPUS 
EXPLERUNT  ABBATIS  t(eMP(or)e  LANDI 

In  completing  the  work,  these  artists  followed  the  paternal 
scheme,  but  in  the  substitution  of  twisted  for  plain  colonnettes, 
in  the  slenderer  proportions,  the  cleaner  outlines,  the  skilful 
workmanship  and  the  freer  ornament  we  see  the  influence  of 
the  change  going  on  in  the  school. 

The  structure  is  oblong ;  the  long  galleries  measuring 
21.50  m.,  the  short  galleries  11  m. ;  or,  including  the  pas- 
sageways, 27.85  m.  and  15.90  m.  Notwithstanding  the  accu- 
racy of  the  masonry,  there  is  an  extraordinary  irregularity 
in  the  measurements.  The  width  of  the  corridors  varies  from 
2.60  m.  to  4.50  m.  ;  the  same  corridor  measuring  3.35  m.  at  one 
end  and  4.50  at  the  other.  The  arcades  on  the  oldest  side 
vary  in  their  opening  from  .49  to  .61  m.  The  height  of  the 
columns  varies  but  little,  from  1.22  m.  to  1.25  m.  on  all  sides. 

Hardly  had  these  cloisters  just  described  been  completed 
when  the  climax  came  by  force  of  logic.  Some  artist  of  genius 
belonging  to  the  school  conceived  the  idea  of  applying  to  the 
details  of  cloistral  architecture  the  decoration  of  inlaid  marble 
and  composition  cubes  already  for  a  century  the  main  decora- 
tion of  church  furniture,  but  which  had  been  applied  only  in 


CLOISTERS 


203 


the  scantiest  way  thus  far  to  the  broad  architectural  masses 
themselves.  It  had  already  been  used,  for  example,  on  the 
frieze  of  church  porticos,  and  in  one  or  two  cases  a  narrow 
band  of  the  mosaic  had  been  inserted  in  the  frieze  of  a  cloister. 
It  seems  really  inexplicable  how  the  Roman  school  could  have 
left  the  cloisters  so  long  bare  and  cold  when  they  wete  so 
familiar  with  the  decorative  value  of  the  colored  cubes.  Now, 
with  a  perfect  burst  of  color  mosaic-work  was  applied  to  every 
part  of  the  cloister,  combined  with  a  careful  and  rich  use  of 


Detail  of  Lateraii  Cloister. 


relief  work,  both  figured  and  ornamental,  filling  the  arch  span- 
drels and  the  under  face  of  arches,  and  punctuating  the  richly 
carved  cornices. 

Possibly  the  initiator  of  the  scheme  was  the  foreigner,  Peter 
of  Capua,  who,  according  to  its  long  mosaic  inscription,  began, 
both  as  architect  and  as  abbot,  the  cloister  of  S.  Paul,  though 
he  did  not  complete  it.  But  the  credit  for  producing  the  most 
exquisite  type  should  be  given  to  Vassallettus,  the  architect 
of  the  cloister  of  the  Lateran,  which  he  built  between  1220 
and  1230. 

These  two  cloisters  are  so  much  alike  as  to  be  almost  in- 


204  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

distinguishable,  especially  so  in  the  case  of  the  more  advanced 
part  of  S.  Paul.     Both  are  large,  the  latter  a  trifle  the  larger. 
The   inscription   proving   the    authorship   of    the    Lateran 
cloister  by  Vassallettus  reads  :  — 

NOBILITER  DOCTUS   HAC  VASSALLETTUS  IN  ARTE,  CUM 
PATRE  CEPIT  OPUS  QUOD  SOLUS  PERFICIT  IPSE 

He  began  the  work  as  his  father's  associate  and  finished  it 
alone,  perhaps  after  his  father's  death,  before  1230,  His 
father's  name,  judging  from  his  signature  in  1186  at  Segni, 
was  Petrus  VassaUectus. 

The  plan  is  square,  measuring  36  m.  each  way.  Each  gallery 
is  formed  of  25  arcades  supported  by  coupled  colonnettes 
arranged  in  groups  of  five,  separated  by  projecting  piers,  with 
separate  bases  resting  on  a  continuous  basement,  broken  only 
by  a  single  entrance  in  the  centre  of  each  side  with  an  opening 
of  0.78  m. 

The  galleries  are  covered  with  their  original  groin  vaulting 
corresponding  to  each  group  of  arcades  and  supported  not 
merely  by  the  piers  but  by  a  group  of  three  columns  at  each 
corner  and  by  single  columns  opposite  the  piers  with  corre- 
sponding pilaster  piers  against  the  wall.  All  have  good  Ionic 
capitals.  The  columns  have  the  greatest  variety  of  design 
and  of  capitals.  Some  shafts  are  plain,  others  twisted,  others 
spiral.  Many  are  inlaid  with  mosaic  patterns,  especially 
those  in  the  centre  of  each  group,  while  ^  the  plain  shafts  are 
set  near  the  piers,  each  of  which  has  two  plain  engaged 
shafts.  The  columns  measure  1.66  m.  and  the  span  of  the 
arches  is  .66  or  .67  m. 

The  common  plinth  is  richly  carved.  It  had  been  still 
plain  at  S.  Cosimato ;  there  it  was  cut  out  of  the  same  slab  as 
the  double  capital  beneath.  The  capitals  also  are  far  more 
deeply  carved,  and  separated  by  a  space  ;  and  while  they  vary, 
the  type  is  nearly  always  frankly  Corinthian  or  a  derivative. 

The  exterior  face  of  the  gallery  is  crowned  by  a  heavy 
carved  cornice  which  is  1.80  m.  above  the  capitals.  The 
design  of  this  cornice  is  exactly  like  the  contemporary  cor- 
nice  of   the   portico   of   S.    Lorenzo,  which   would   therefore 


CLOISTERS  205 

seem  to  be  also  by  Vassallettus.  But  here  the  cornice  is 
broken  at  iutervals  by  the  piers  which  gave  the  artist  an 
opportunity  for  those  fascinating  masks  and  heads  described 
under  Sculpture,  to  which  chapter  I  refer  also  for  the  sphinxes 
and  lions  at  the  entrances  and  the  reliefs  in  the  spandrels, 
which,  we  learn  from  the  long  mosaic  inscription  of  the  minor 
frieze,  were  intended  to  impress  on  the  monks  the  tempta- 
tions and  vanities  of  the  flesh.  Under  the  line  of  brackets 
is  the  main  frieze,  consisting  of  alternate  square  and  cir- 
cular slabs  of  porphyry,  serpentine,  granite  and  other  marbles, 
set  in  a  framework  of  mosaic  patterns  and  themselves  varied 
by  inset  designs.  Its  splendor  is  dimmed  by  many  vacant  spaces 
aud  by  the  disgusting  drippings  of  mortar  of  recent  workmen. 

At  S.  Paul  the  scheme  is  exactly  the  same,  but  there  is  not 
the  same  unity  of  detail  owing  to  the  length  of  time  con- 
sumed in  the  work  and  the  change  of  artists.  The  three 
earlier  sides  are  simpler;  the  later  south  side  is  even  richer 
than  the  Lateran  work.  For  instance,  in  the  indrados  or 
under  surface  of  its  arcades,  the  plain  lines  of  torus  mouldings 
are  replaced  by  a  double  row  of  rosetted  coffers,  and  the  inner 
as  well  as  the  outer  spandrels  are  carved. 

The  greater  simplicity  of  the  earlier  part  includes  :  the  use 
of  plain  shafts  throughout,  as  at  S.  Cosimato ;  the  absence  of 
carving  in  the  spandrels,  which  appears,  as  in  the  Lateran, 
on  the  fourth  side ;  the  absence  of  carved  corner  heads,  except 
lions,  and  the  poor  workmanship  on  the  cornice,  which,  but  for 
the  lion  heads,  is  plain.    Neither  are  the  bracket  consols  carved. 

The  mosaic  inscriptions  on  the  narrow  frieze  states  that  the 
cloister  was  commenced  by  Abbot  Peter  II  of  Capua  (1193- 
1208),  who  also  personally  planned  it,  and  was  completed  by 
Abbot  John  V  (1208-1241).  This  Peter  of  Capua  is  credited, 
in  a  contemporary  chronicle,  with  some  artistic  work  at 
Salerno,  and  might  be  a  connecting  link  between  the  Koman 
and  Campanian  schools.  The  inscription  supposed  to  give 
the  author  of  the  fourth  and  latest  side  reads :  — 

MAGISTER.       PETRUS.       FECIT.       HOC.       OPUS. 

but  was  cut  on  a  small  slab  set  into  the  vaulting  of  the  gallery. 


206  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

The  greatest  piece  of  vandalism  perpetrated  recently  on  a 
mediaeval  monument  in  Kome  is  the  tearing  down  of  the  vaults 
covering  the  galleries  of  this  cloister.  The  pilaster  responds, 
projecting  both  from  the  piers  and  the  walls  opposite  them, 
show  that  the  original  plan  provided  for  vaulting;  and  that 
the  destroyed  vaulting  was  mediaeval,  even  if  not  exactly  co- 
eval, has  been  proved  by  its  demolition,  which  showed  the  use 
of  hollow  vases,  as  well  as  by  this  signature  of  Petrus.  The 
present  modern  pitch  roof  with  its  wooden  ceiling  injures 
the  dignity  and  diminishes  the  charm  of  the  cloister. 

In  the  fourth  side  at  S.  Paul's  the  Roman  school  reached  the 
climax  of  its  cloistral  architecture  between  1230  and  1240. 
Whatever  else  it  may  have  produced  later,  as  the  upper  story 
which  crowns  the  earlier  cloister  at  S.  Maria  in  Aracoeli,  is  in 
the  nature  of  an  anticlimax. 

Among  the  many  reasons  for  the  charm  of  these  Eoman 
cloisters  is  one  that  has  only  recently  been  discovered.  It  is 
that  here,  as  in  so  many  Greek  temples,  there  were  variations 
from  the  straight  line,  especially  in  horizontals,  in  such  a  way 
as  to  give  sweeps  of  beauty  in  place  of  purely  mechanical 
stretches,  and  an  illusion  of  greater  length.  This  is  evident  to 
any  one  standing  at  the  corner  of  one  of  the  inner  faces  of  a 
cloister,  as  he  lets  his  eye  follow  the  sweep,  of  the  cornice 
above  the  arcade  surrounding  the  cloistral  court.  The  regu- 
larity of  this  curve  and  its  constant  repetition  show  that  it 
was  not  accidental,  but  deliberately  planned.  I  have  already 
noticed  it  in  the  early  work  at  SS.  Quattro  Coronati,  and  it 
reappears  in  every  later  cloister  that  I  have  tested. 

It  is  from  one  of  the  cloisters  outside  of  Kome  that  we  learn 
that  this  type  was  considered  even  by  contemporaries  as  the 
"  Roman  Style."  This  is  remarkable,  because  it  is  generally 
only  posterity,  with  its  historical  perspective,  that  labels  a  style 
and  provides  it  with  a  proper  niche. 

It  is  in  the  inscriptions  of  the  cloister  of  Sassovivo  that  this 
occurs.  It  states  that  the  cloister  was  built  romano  opere  et 
mcestria,  "in  Roman  workmanship  and  style,"  in  1229,  by  the 
artist  Petrus  de  Maria.  The  connection  between  this  cloister 
and  the  contemporary  group  by  other  Roman  artists  is  perfectly 


CLOISTERS  207 

evident.  It  is  also  evident  why  the  artist  took  pride  in  stating 
that  it  was  done  in  the  Koman  style:  it  was  because  Sassovivo 
was  in  Umbria,  beyond  the  regular  sphere  of  activity  of  the 
Roman  artists.  In  their  own  province  it  would  have  been 
quite  superfluous  to  use  such  an  expression. 

These  are  not  by  any  means  the  only  cloisters  in  the  Roman 
province.  But  those  of  the  Cistercian  order  at  Fossanova, 
Casamari  and  Valvisciolo  belong  to  this  special  monastic 
school,  and  not  to  Roman  art.  There  was  certainly  some 
reciprocal  influence.  The  other  most  important  group  is  at 
Viterbo,  where  the  Cistercian  and  the  new  Dominican  and 
Franciscan  orders  met. 


CIVIL  ARCHITECTURE 

It  was  several  centuries  before  any  change  took  place  in  the 
civil  and  private  architecture  of  Rome.  The  patrician  families 
of  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries  continued  to  live  in  their 
ancestral  city  palaces  and  suburban  villas.  Early  in  the  fifth 
century  the  palace  on  the  Coelian,  belonging  to  S.  Melania,  the 
wealthiest  woman  of  her  time,  included,  besides  the  main,  resi- 
dential quarters,  a  number  of  porticoed  courts,  a  circus  and  a 
hippodrome  set  in  extensive  grounds.  A  contemporary  de- 
scribes the  mosaics,  rich  marbles,  frescos  and  statues  with 
which  both  buildings  and  grounds  were  decorated.  This  is 
typical  of  the  general  condition,  as  we  see  it  in  the  correspond- 
ence of  Symmachus,  Paulinus  and  other  notables  of  the  time. 
If  there  were  any  changes,  it  was  by  decay  or  destruction. 
Alaric  (410),  Genseric  (455)  and  the  Gothic  wars  were  succes- 
sive agents  in  the  process  of  elimination.  Sixty  palaces  oh  the 
Aventine,  which  was  the  favorite  aristocratic  quarter,  were 
sacked  and  burned  by  Genseric's  Vandals. 

The  fragments  remaining  from  the  decoration  in  marble 
slabs  of  the  private  basilic^,  of  Junius  Bassus  is  about  all  the 
clew  to  what  the  decorative  artists  were  then  doing.  But  the 
house  of  John  and  Paul  on  the  Coelian  embodied  in  a  church 
in  c.  400,  while  shorn  of  nearly  all  its  decorative  features, 
shows  the  internal  arrangements,  structure  and  a  good  part 
of  the  pictorial  decoration  of  a  house  in  which  wealthy  Chris- 
tians of  the  fourth  century  lived.  One  of  the  few  changes 
that  we  notice,  besides  the  introduction  of  distinctively  Chris- 
tian subjects  in  the  frescos,  is  the  private  chapel  or  oratory, 
which  became  so  fashionable  as  to  interfere  with  the  public 
church- services,  so  that  their  use  was  finally  prohibited. 

Very  few  of  the  palaces  that  survived  the  calamities  of  the 
Gothic  wars  remained  in  the  hands  of  their  original  owners 
or  were  kept  restored.     Pope  Gregory  the  Great,  as  an  excep- 

208 


CIVIL  ARCHITECTURE  209 

tion,  lived  at  first  in  his  family  mansion,  that  of  the  Anicii, 
but  even  he  finally  transformed  it  into  a  monastery.  In  the 
course  of  the  seventh  and  eighth  centuries  we  must  imagine 
that  the  numerous  monasteries  which  we  know  to  have  estab- 
lished themselves  on  the  Coelian  and  Aventine  hills  where  the 
abandoned  and  ruined  palaces  were  mostly  placed,  settled  there 
because  they  could  use  the  broad  spaces  and  the  buildings. 

A  few  buildings  were  kept  in  condition.  The  Byzantine 
Emperors  inherited  the  ownership  of  the  public  civil  buildings 
of  the  city,  and  their  representatives  lived  in  the  palace  of  the 
Caesars,  a  part  of  which  was  kept  in  repair. 

The  new  civil  and  domestic  architecture  that  arose  after 
the  seventh  century  was  exceedingly  modest  and  restricted. 
The  population  being  concentrated  on  the  low  ground  near  the 
river,  it  is  there  that  we  find  traces  of  their  houses ;  in  only 
one  section,  the  Koman  Forum,  has  anything  come  to  light 
that  belongs  to  this  age.  The  rest  of  the  city  was  too  fre- 
quently built  over.  Such  modest  Byzantine  residences  were 
hidden,  like  the  contemporary  chapels,  in  the  recesses  and 
corners  of  the  great  monuments  of  antiquity,  and  were  built 
of  stones  taken  from  their  ruins.  A  number  have  been  dis- 
covered, always  to  be  destroyed  by  the  excavators  as  of  no 
interest  until  the  very  recent  intelligent  excavations  under 
Boni.  They  are  found  in  the  Atrium  Vestae,  the  palace  of 
Tiberius,  the  Kegia,  the  Basilica  Emilia.  Of  these,  the  best 
preserved  is  the  one  occupying  the  east  end  of  the  basilica 
-Emilia.     It  is,  however,  hardly  architecture ;  mere  building. 

Whatever  art  there  was  outside  the  churches,  was  illustrated 
in  the  annexes  to  these  churches,  in  the  hospitals,  poorhouses, 
dining  and  reception  halls,  hotels  for  pilgrims,  etc.  These  also 
have  been  swept  away  by  the  changes  in  fashion.  Every  large 
basilica  was  the  centre  of  such  a  group  of  buildings.  That 
of  the  Lateran,  including  the  palace,  was  the  most  important. 

Only  as  the  Carlovingian  era  advanced  was  there  a  change. 
Now  there  emerged  from  the  ruck  an  aristocracy  of  wealth  and 
position  which  soon  established  itself  upon  the  firm  founda- 
tion of  feudal  possessions  throughout  the  Roman  province. 
They  built  palaces  in  the  city  and  castles  in  the  country. 


210 


CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 


Judging  from  literary  sources,  some  of  the  palaces  were  based 
on  the  scheme  of  the  antique  courts,  with  halls  between  and 
around  them.  The  life  that  these  feudal  nobles  led  was  not 
wanting  in  a  crude  magnificence  and  pomp. 

The  wild  feuds  of  the  tenth  century  and  the  absolute  neces- 
sity of  a  fortified  residence  for  self-protection  definitely  elimi- 
nated all  remaining  traces  of  the  type  of  the  antique  house. 

When  the  great  Alberic  gave  his  house  for  a  monastery, 
it  was  probably  because  he  wished  to  replace  it  by  one  of 
the  new  fortified  type.  The  counts  of  Tusculum  had  an  exten- 
sive palace  near  the  SS.  Apostoli,  where  they  held  court  of 
justice;    in  1191  it  passed  to  the  Colonnas.      The  Emperor 


Detail  of  Palace  of  Crescentius. 
(Tenth  and  eleventh  centuries.) 


Otho  III  built  himself  such  a  palace  between  S.  Alessio  and  S. 
Maria  Aventina,  of  which  traces  still  remain.  But  the  only 
considerable  remnant  of  this  age  is  the  so-called  House  of 
Crescentius,  a  palace  built  by  a  noble  named  Nicholas  for  him- 
self and  his  son.  It  is  an  elaborate  brick  structure  with  trim- 
mings of  terra-cotta  and  marble,  friezes  and  cornices  that  are 
partly  classic,  partly  debased  imitations.     Even  now  there  is 


CIVIL  ARCHITECTURE  211 

enough  to  show  that  it  was  far  in  advance  of  the  residences  of 
the  Byzantine  age,  and  may  readily  have  been  the  scene  of  the 
merry  and  luxurious  life  which  the  Roman  nobility  and  clergy 
are  accused  of  living  in  the  tenth  century. 

The  poverty  of  the  eleventh  century  and  the  Guiscard  fire 
proved  a  serious  setback  to  civil  architecture,  and  over  a 
century  elapsed  before  it  recovered. 

In  connection  with  the  reconstruction  of  the  city  the  leaders 
of  the  Church  appear  to  have  wanted  to  take  a  sort  of  general 
"  account  of  stock.''  A  number  of  documents  show  that  this 
applied  not  only  to  mediaeval  monuments,  both  religious  and 
civil,  but  to  the  ruins  of  the  ancient  city.  A  guide-book  to  the 
city  was  drawn  up  which,  under  the  name  of  Mirahilia,  the 
Marvels  of  the  City  of  Rome,  had  a  general  diffusion  over 
Europe.  It  has  been  shown  by  Duchesne  to  have  been  writ- 
ten, c.  1130,  by  the  monk  Benedict,  author  of  the  public  cere- 
monial book,  the  Ordo.  To  supplement  this  there  was  appar- 
ently —  perhaps  not  till  later  —  a  bird's-eye- view  plan  drawn, 
showing  the  position  of  the  principal  buildings,  ancient  and 
recent.  This  general  study  was  supplemented  by  monographs 
on  the  principal  basilicas,  of  which  the  two  most  important, 
those  of  the  Lateran  and  Vatican  basilicas,  have  been  preserved. 
Careful  lists  of  the  churches  and  monasteries  were  drawn  up, 
with  the  amounts  due  to  each  from  the  Papal  treasury,  and  the 
organization  of  the  Roman  priesthood  in  the  general  associa- 
tion of  the  Fratemitas  Romanay  with  its  four  subdivisions, 
wa<s  recognized  as  an  offset  to  the  careful  organization  of 
the  mass  of  citizens  under  their  guilds  and  in  their  rioni  or 
quarters. 

Once  more  the  unions,  or  guilds,  which  had  never  ceased  to 
exist  in  Rome,  became  of  importance  in  the  artistic  develop- 
ment of  the  city.  Elsewhere  I  shall  speak  of  this  in  con- 
nection with  the  schools  of  artists,  and  merely  call  attention 
here  to  the  grouping  of  the  guilds  in  the  city.  Each  occupied 
a  street  or  group  of  streets,  where  they  lived  and  kept  shop : 
here  they  had  their  guild-church  or  churches,  where  they  were 
buried,  and  which  they  decorated  and  kept  in  repair. 

Stray  buildings  like  the  old  inn  near  the  Tiber,  the  Albergo 


212  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

delV  Orso,  famous  even  in  Dante's  time,  or  the  Hospital  of 
S.  John  Lateran,  are  types  of  a  once  numerous  class. 

The  centre  of  the  late  mediaeval  city  was  the  Capitol.  At 
its  feet,  from  the  Aracoeli  steps  to  S.  Venanzio,  was  the  main 
market ;  that  of  the  clothiers  was  in  Via  delle  Botteghe  Oscure, 
between  the  arches  of  the  Circus  Flaminius ;  that  of  the 
fishmongers  between  the  columns  of  the  portico  of  Octavia, 
by  S.  Angelo  in  Pescheria.  The  thickly  peopled  section,  along 
both  banks  of  the  river,  extended  from  the  Ponte  Rotto  to  the 
Ponte  Sisto.  How  much  of  this  is  left  since  the  Italians  began 
to  gut  the  old  city  after  1870?  The  Ghetto,  which,  before 
being  given  over  to  the  Jews  by  the  Popes  of  the  Renaissance, 
had  been  one  of  the  main  quarters  of  the  city,  has  been  entirely 
demolished.  The  works  for  the  rectification  of  the  banks  of 
the  Tiber,  in  which  so  many  millions  were  sunk  with  little 
visible  result,  swept  away  nearly  all  the  old  city  on  both  banks. 
A  few  pitiful  fragments  remain,  between  Ponte  Rotto  and 
Ponte  Quattro  Capi,  keeping  company  with  the  house  of  Cres- 
centius,  and  especially  in  the  short  tract  in  the  Campo  Marzo, 
at  the  Trinita  de  Pellegrini,  at  the  foot  of  the  Aracoeli  and  be- 
tween Via  di  San  Bartolommeo  de'  Vaccinari  and  S.  Paolino 
alia  Regola.  This  also  is  threatened  by  the  extension  of  the 
jnano  regolatore.  A  portico  of  arches  supported  by  heavy 
granite  shafts,  crowned  by  Ionic  capitals,  remains  at  No.  29  of 
Via  San  Bartolommeo,  and  it  was  originally  connected  with  a 
cross-street  by  a  covered  passage  similar  to  the  so-called  arco 
de  Ginnasi  and  arco  de  CencL  Farther  along  a  larger  house 
forms  a  small  square  on  the  corner  of  the  Via  de  Strengari.  It 
is  built  of  brick  with  f^ifo  trim,  and  is  entirely  surrounded  by 
a  colonnaded  portico.  Its  fenestration  is  fairly  elaborate,  with 
double  lights  separated  by  twisted  colonnettes. 

It  is  difficult  to  realize  that  the  streets  of  the  mediaeval  city 
were  usually  flanked  with  a  double  row  of  porticos.  It  was 
an  antique  tradition  which  we  see  followed  in  various  mediaeval 
and  modern  cities  of  Italy,  such  as  Bologna,  Padua  and  Turin  — 
an  arrangement  both  artistic  and  salutary,  a  protection  from 
rain  and  sun.  We  have  seen  how  the  Rome  of  early  Christian 
days  had  been  provided  with  its  long  lines  of  porticos,  under 


CIVIL   ARCHITECTURE 


213 


■vvhich  the  pilgrims,  for  instance,  could  walk  without  a  break 
the  miles  between  the  basilicas  of  S.  Peter  and  S.  Paul. 
We  must  imagine  that  many  of  the  arcades  and  porticos 
were  destroyed  at  the  time  of  the  fire  of  Kobert  Guiscard,  es- 
pecially w^here  the  level  of  the  city  was  raised,  and  that  those 


Gothic  Window  of  House  in  Piazza  Capranica. 

that  were  rebuilt  were  of  less  monumental  character.  Doubtless 
they  were  extremely  irregular,  and  were  composed  largely  of 
ancient  materials,  unmatcfhed  shafts  and  capitals,  bits  of  archi- 
traves and  cornices.  In  less  artistic  fashion  they  reminded  of 
the  church  porticos,  and  were  seldom  arched,  almost  always 
wdth  the  pseudo-classic  architrave. 


214 


CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 


With  the  return  of  the  Papacy  and  the  Renaissance,  all 
these  porticos  were  destroyed  or  closed  up  as  occupying  valu- 
able room.     Not  a  single  one  remains  open. 

To  the  same  style  of  the  thirteenth  century  belongs  a  house 
in  the  Piazza  S.  Cecilia.     To  the  more  advanced  Middle  Ages 


Court  of  Yitelleschi  Palace  at  Coiuclo. 

and  the  Gothic  invasion  belong  such  typical  palaces  as  that 
which  has  been  turned  into  a  theatre  in  the  Piazza  Capranica, 
with  rather  charming  windows  and  on  a  large  scale  —  probably 
a  rich  cardinal's  house,  quite  similar  to  the  better-preserved 
Anguillara  palace  which  will  be  described  under  Military  Ar- 
chitecture. But  the  fourteenth  century  was  more  concerned 
with  tearing  down  than  building  up  civil  structures,  which 


CIVIL  ARCHITECTURE 


215 


were  then  almost  inextricably  interwoven  with  that  feudal 
military  architecture,  which  the  popular  uprisings  of  this  age 
sought  to  destroy. 

It  is  not  easy  to  dissociate  the  civil  buildings  in  Kome  itself 
with  those  in  the  province,  where  so  many  of  the  Koman  nobility 
and  clergy  had  palaces  and  castles,  but  the  limits  of  this  volume 
forbid  more  than  an  allusion  to  this  rich  field.  Perhaps  the 
two  main  distinctions  are  of  material  and  style ;  for  stone  was 
substituted  for  brick  nearly  always  in  the  provincial  cities,  and 
the  classic  influence  was  largely  wanting,  so  that  the  porticoed 


Late  Gtothic  Windows  in  Vitelleschi  Palace  at  Corneto. 

streets  either  did  not  exist,  or  were  in  the  Romanesque  and 
Gothic  styles.  The  towns  both  north  and  south  of  Rome  are 
particularly  rich  in  material  of  this  period.  Alatri,  Ferentino, 
Anagni  and  Veroli,  to  the  south;  Civita-Castellana,  Corneto, 
Viterbo,  Orvieto,  to  the  north,  are  still  largely  mediaeval  in 
their  street  architecture,  and  among  the  most  picturesque  cities 
of  Italy.  The  palace  of  Cardinal  Vitelleschi  at  Corneto,  with 
its  grandiose  court  and  rich  gothic  fenestration,  probably 
had  counterparts  in  Rome. 


MILITARY  ARCHITECTURE 

In  a  history  of  the  military  architecture  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
or  even  in  a  general  history  of  the  subject,  neither  of  which 
has  yet  been  written,  the  monuments  of  Rome  and  her  prov- 
ince would  take  an  unexpectedly  important  place,  not  so  much 
for  their  fine  preservation  or  intrinsic  interest,  as  because 
they  form  in  their  early  examples  the  connecting  link  with 
antiquity. 

Specialists  are  aware  of  the  fact  that  Roman  military  science 
in  the  sphere  of  fortifications  was  quite  rudimentary  in  com- 
parison with  that  of  the  Oriental  nations.  The  Oriental  tradi- 
tion of  curved  lines,  and  of  concentric  parallel  defences  en 
different  levels,  handed  down  from  Hittites  and  Syrians  to 
Assyrians  and  Persians  and  transmitted  by  the  Byzantines 
to  the  Mohammedans,  seems  to  have  been  a  closed  book  to 
purely  Roman  strategists,  and  was  brought  to  the  West  only 
by  the  crusading  leaders,  who  had  learned  of  the  excellence  of 
these  Eastern  methods  in  the  hard  field  of  bitter  experience. 

But  before  this  transformation  was  thoroughly  completed 
in  Europe,  at  the  opening  of  the  thirteenth  century,  a  unique 
place  was  held  by  the  mediaeval  fortresses  of  the  Roman  prov- 
ince. Elsewhere,  in  France,  England  and  Germany,  there  is 
a  slow  and  painful  evolution  from  the  earthworks  of  the  IVIero- 
vingian  age,  through  the  square  keep  within  a  circuit  at  first  of 
earth  and  palisades  and  finally  of  stone,  of  which  the  best 
type  is  the  Norman  —  a  type  which  does  not  entirely  replace 
the  outer  earthworks  by  stone  until  the  beginning  of  the 
twelfth  century. 

In  the  Roman  province,  on  the  contrary,  there  is  no  such 
long  lacuna  and  violent  difference  during  the  early  Middle 
Ages.  In  this  as  in  so  many  other  branches  antiquity  and  the 
Middle  Ages  clasp   hands.     But,   curiously   enough,  nothing, 

216 


MILITARY  ARCHITECTURE 


217 


absolutely  nothing,  has  been  done  to  illustrate  the  numerous 
examples  of  mediaeval  Roman  military  architecture  and  en- 
gineering. Here  they  can  be  but  lightly  touched  upon,  as  they 
do  not  belong,  by  strict  construction,  to  the  field  of  pure  art. 

Two  conditions  gave  birth  to  the  great  development  of  mili- 
tary structures  in  this  region,  and  these  conditions  arose  almost 
simultaneously,  in  the  ninth  century  :  the  establishment  of  the 


Castle  of  Celauo. 
(Thirteenth  century.) 

feudal  system ;  and  the  great  Saracenic  raid.  Both  of  these 
conditions  were  largely  local.  In  the  history  of  feudalism  it  is 
not  generally  understood  that  the  feudal  nobility  of  Rome  was 
the  earliest  to  acquire  importance  in  mediaeval  society.  A 
curious  blow  at  the  theory  of  its  strictly  Germanic  and  northern 
character  !  The  chaotic  social  and  political  condition  result- 
ing from  the  enfeeblement  and  extinction  of  the  Carlovingian 


218  CLASSIFICATION  OF   TBeMQI^UMENTS 

dynasty  and  the  decay  at  the  same  time  of  the  spiritual  power 
of  the  Papacy,  made  it  necessary  for  every  strong  man  to  fend 
for  himself  and  opened  the  way  to  private  ambition  in  a  manner 
previously  impossible  when  there  was  a  strong  central  power. 
The  great  secular  officers,  such  as  the  chiefs  of  the  Eoman 
army,  the  head  officials  of  the  Papal  court,  carved  out  for  them- 
selves important  fiefs.  Large  estates  and  their  towns,  the 
property  of  the  Church,  were  for  a  financial  consideration 
turned  over  for  life  by  the  Popes  to  some  prominent  family,  and 
what  was  intended  as  merely  a  life  tenure  became  a  hereditary 
possession.  Such  families  as  that  of  Alberic  and  Crescentius 
had  at  an  early  time  both  their  palaces  in  the  city  and  their 
fortresses  in  the  country.  The  Frangipani,  Orsini,  Colonna, 
Anguillara  and  others  soon  followed,  for  the  terrible  condition 
of  the  Papacy  in  the  tenth  century,  at  the  mercy  of  ambitious 
and  dissolute  women  and  nobles,  gave  free  scope  to  the  parti- 
tion of  the  province  among  the  ambitious  magnates. 

But  an  even  more  precise  and  far-reaching  cause  for  the 
spread  of  military  engineering  was  the  Saracen  invasion.  It 
turned  the  Popes  into  generals  and  admirals,  led  again  to  the 
creation  of  a  Roman  fleet  and  to  Roman  naval  victories.  The 
permanent  establishment  of  the  Saracens  in  many  military 
centres  throughout  the  Roman  and  Neapolitan  provinces,  with 
their  centre  in  a  city  on  the  river  Garigliano,  laid  the  whole 
country  at  their  mercy  for  thirty  years.  Even  now  the  eyrie- 
town  of  Saracinesca  is  peopled  by  their  descendants.  All 
country  life  ceased ;  all  monasteries,  even  when  fortified,  were 
destroyed;  no  open  town  was  safe.  Far  more  than  even  the 
previous  invasions  of  Vandals,  Goths  or  Lombards,  this  raid, 
so  little  noticed  in  history  amid  the  other  more  spectacular 
events  of  the  Arab  conquests,  radically  changed  the  aspect  of 
the  land  in  this  part  of  Italy. 

Cities  were  provided  Avith  strong  battlemented  walls  and 
towers  and  defended  by  trained  militia.  The  monasteries 
were  turned  into  fortresses  and  the  abbots  into  feudal  mili- 
tary lords  with  a  swarm  of  vassal  soldiery.  Every  peak  was 
fortified.  At  every  point  of  vantage,  at  every  proper  interval 
between  towns,  were  built  watch-towers  to  guard  the  roads, 


MILITARY  ARCHITECTURE 


219 


and  to 
dictine 
towns 
class. 

This 
seems 
before 


give  warning  of  raids.    The  chronicle  of  the  great  Bene- 

monastery  of  Subiaco,  which  held  sway  over  so  many 

and  built  so  many  fortresses,  is  typical  of  the  whole 

defensive  military  engineering  as  a  feudal  institution 

to  have  been  developed  in  the  province  for  some  time 

it  was  introduced  into   Kome   itself ;    and  when  this 


Castle  and  Fortifications  of  Nepi. 


happened  it  was  largely  because  of  rivalry  between  the  great 
feudal  families.  But  there  was  one  field  —  that  of  general 
public  defence  —  in  which  we  must  picture  Rome  and  the 
Papacy  as  at  once  taking  the  lead  and  showing  the  way. 
There  was,  for  about  a  century,  a  tremendous  activity  and 
lavish  expenditure  in  this  field :  the  creation  and  fortification 
of  the  Leonine  city  around  S.  Peter ;  of  the  suburb  of  Johan- 
nipolis,  around  S.  Paul ;  of  the  later  fort  of  S.  Lorenzo  ;  of  the 
fortified  ports  of  Ostia,  Portus  and  Civitavecchia,   as   well 


220  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

as  the  extensive  repairing  of  the  walls  and  gates  of  Rome 
itself.  One  stands  amazed  at  the  millions  that  must  have 
come  out  of  the  Papal  and  imperial  treasuries  for  this  work 
of  defence. 

One  of  the  most  conspicuous  of  the  feudal  castles  of  this 
primitive  period  seems  to  be  that  crowning  a  rise  overlooking 


Palace  of  the  Anguillara,  iu  Tiastevere. 

the  Campagna  on  the  edge  of  the  Alban  hills  near  Grottaf er- 
rata. It  is  called  Borghetto  or  Castel  Savelli,  but  was  called 
in  the  tenth  century  Civitella  and  may  have  been  the  primitive 
seats  of  the  counts  of  Tusculum. 


MILITARY  ARCHITECTURE  221 

It  is  an  oblong  rectangle  about  134  by  55  metres,  with  six 
squarish  towers  on  each  long  side.  Inside  the  walls,  besides 
the  main  keep,  a  church  and  several  other  buildings,  there 
were  two  inner  bastions  on  either  side  of  the  main  gate,  facing 
Eome.  The  plan  remained  that  of  the  ninth-tenth  century, 
and  the  lower  part  of  the  walls  is  of  the  large  blocks  of  Alban 
stone  or  tufa  then  commonly  used.  But  the  fortress  was 
changed  at  two  periods.  In  the  thirteenth  century,  when  it 
passed  to  the  Savelli,  they  built  the  parts  in  small  blocks  of 
peperino,  as  well  in  the  castle  proper  as  in  the  bastion  in  front 
of  it.  Then  in  the  fifteenth  century  it  was  changed,  but  not 
fundamentally,  by  Cardinal  della  Kovere.  It  is  now  totally 
abandoned,  and  worthy  of  careful  study. 

In  the  city  itself  the  fortresses  of  the  Erangipani  and 
Pierleone  and  other  great  nobles  were  so  strong  in  the  twelfth 
century  as  to  defy  assault  even  when  the  city  itself  was  cap- 
tured. So  in  the  Trastevere  were  the  towers  of  the  Tebaldi 
and  near  S.  Martino  those  of  the  Capocci.  The  most  promi- 
nent present  ruins  of  such  city  fortresses  belong  to  the  follow- 
ing century  and  are  the  great  towers  of  the  Conti  and  the 
Milizie  which  still  stand  in  only  part  of  their  original  enor- 
mous bulk  as  part  of  great  enclosures ;  that  of  the  Conti 
included  all  the  Forum  of  Nerva.  Both  could  hold  large 
garrisons  and  outdid  the  older  fortresses  of  the  Frangipani  and 
Pierleone.  Latest  and  best  preserved  is  the  fortress-palace  of 
the  Anguillara  family  in  the  Trastevere,  where  the  Middle 
Ages  join  hands  with  the  early  Renaissance.  It  has  for- 
tunately been  preserved  from  the  fate  of  most  civil  structures 
in  Kome  by  a  careful  restoration  and  use  as  a  civic  museum. 
Its  halls  are  built  around  two  sides  of  a  court,  while  the  third 
is  occupied  by  vestibules  and  the  keep,  and  the  fourth  side  is 
protected  by  a  high  battlemented  wall.  This  was  a  common 
plan. 


SCULPTURE 

The  decadence  in  technical  ability  that  afflicted  Italian  art 
during  the  fourth  century  was  offset  by  no  redeeming  traits 

in  the  sphere  of  Sculp- 
ture. In  the  new  Chris- 
tian dispensation  it  was 
the  only  art  for  which 
no  mission  was  found ; 
so  that  for  it  there  was 
no  rebirth  on  the  plane 
of  the  new  idealism  such 
as  transformed  painting 
and  architecture.  More 
and  more  sculpture  fell 
into  the  hands  of  mere 
practitioners  and  sur- 
vived as  an  unoriginal 
product  until  the  extinc- 
tion of  the  art  guilds 
in  the  fifth  and  sixth 
centuries. 

In  one  way  it  has  a  pe- 
culiar interest,  because, 
unlike  sectarian  paint- 
ing, it  was  a  common 
meeting  ground.  Pagan, 
non-sectarian  (civil),  and 

distinctly  Christian 
Statue  of  Hippolytus,  Bishop  of  Porto.  ^ ^^^^^g  ^jj  ^^^g^^^  g^^^  ^^ 

side.  Triumphal  arches,  imperial  statues  and  busts,  consular, 
and  other  secular  figures,  continued  the  traditions  of  pagan 
public  monuments  with  practically  no  change  except  from  the 

222 


SCULPTURE 


223 


natural  evolution  of  style.  Even  in  the  Christian  field  it  was 
only  in  the  reliefs  that  sculpture  showed  a  dogmatic  tendency. 
It  was  inherent  in  the  nature  of  statuary  that  it  should 
be  the  least  affected  by  a  change  of  faith,  as  its  very  sim- 
plicity makes  it  a  form  of  art  but  ill  adapted  to  the  expres- 
sion of  religious  dogma.    The  most  precious  and  early  example 


Lroiize  Statue  of  S.  Peter. 


Statue  of  Coustautiue,  Lateran. 


of  Christian  statuary,  the  more  than  life-size  seated  figure  of 
Bishop  Hippolytus  of  Porto,  author  of  the  reform  in  the  ec- 
clesiastical calendar  for  Easter,  is  almost  an  absolute  counter- 
part of  contemporary  seated  statues  of  philosophers  and  poets. 
While  partly  restored,  it  is  true,  it  is  a  work  of  the  age  of 
Septimius  Severn s  that  challenges  comparison  with  the  classic 
works  of  the  period  ;  nothing  about  it  suggests  a  religious 
creed  of  any  sort.  It  was  found  at  Porto  itself  and  is  now  in 
the  Lateran  Museum. 


224  CLASSIFICATION   OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

Even  more  famous  is  the  life-size  seated  bronze  figure  of 
S.  Peter,  still  existing  in  his  basilica  and  an  object  of  great 
veneration.  Tradition  has  attributed  it  to  the  middle  of  the 
fifth  century  and  the  time  of  Pope  Leo  the  Great.  Some 
recent  critics  have  denied  that  so  good  a  work  could  have  been 
produced  at  that  time  and  have  assigned  it  to  one  of  the  mas- 
ters of  the  early  revival  of  sculpture  in  the  thirteenth  century 
(Arnolfo).  I  am  still  inclined  to  feel  that  it  belongs  to  the 
flourishing  age  of  Theodoric  and  Symmachus.  There  is  every 
reason  to  believe  that  ability  to  produce  good  works  of  bronze 
casting  lasted  much  longer  than  that  of  carving  in  marble. 
It  is  possible  that  while  the  corporation  of  marble  cutters 
was  dispersed  in  410,  that  of  the  metal  workers  remained  to  a 
large  extent  in  Eome,  probably  because  it  was  far  more  gener- 
ally patronized  by  the  Church,  while  the  marble  cutters  de- 
pended more  on  the  favor  of  the  defunct  imperial  court.  The 
numerous  and  varied  forms  in  which  gold,  silver  and  bronze 
were  used  for  the  decoration  of  the  basilicas  from  Constantine 
to  Theodoric  is  proved  by  the  extracts  from  the  papal  inven- 
tories given  in  the  Liber  Pontificalis.  Among  these  there  are 
many  figures  in  relief  and  in  the  round,  including  statues  of 
Christ  and  of  the  Apostles.  Such  an  art  was  more  traditional 
and  conservative  than  that  of  marble  carving,  depended  less  on 
the  actual  handling  of  the  practitioner,  which  had  so  sadly 
deteriorated,  and  more  on  a  skilful  use  and  adaptation  of  an- 
cient moulds,  which  had  been  handed  down  from  previous 
generations  of  good  artists. 

We  may  consider,  therefore,  this  sacred  statue  of  S.  Peter  as 
the  solitary  survivor  of  a  large  class  of  works  whose  mate- 
rial always  made  them  a  prey  to  the  spoiler.  Here  also  there 
is  but  little  to  distinguish  the  work  of  Christian  art :  only  the 
symbolism  of  the  keys,  analogous  to  the  emblems  held  by  so 
many  pagan  divinities,  and  the  gesture  of  blessing  that  suits 
the  air  of  alertness  and  authority. 

Constantinian  Works.  —  It  is  comparatively  easy,  even  with 
the  few  remaining  examples  found  in  Rome,  to  illustrate  the 
decadence  in  marble  statuary  under  Constantine  and  his  suc- 
cessors.    Perhaps  the  two  most  famous  statues  of  Constantine 


SCULPTURE  225 

were  those  in  the  square  of  the  Forum,  the  Basilica  and  Ther- 
mae, none  of  which  have  been  preserved.  But  there  is  one, 
also  colossal,  which  now  stands  in  the  atrium  of  the  Lat^an 
basilica  and  another  in  the  Capitoline  museum. 

It  seems  quite  impossible  to  attribute  to  the  same  age  the 
very  high  reliefs  on  the  porphyry  sarcophagus  of  the  Empress 
Helena,  mother  of  Constantine,  found  in  her  mausoleum.  The 
high  finish  and  good  action  of  the  figures  indicate  unusual 
artistic  ability  and  a  far  earlier  date.  One  of  his  most 
striking  busts,  with  summary  treatment  in  broad  planes  and  a 
return  to  archaic  frontal  pose,  is  in  the  Conservatori  museum, 
probably  from  the  colossal  statue  in  the  apse  of  the  New  Basilica. 
Less  numerous  and  even  more  inartistic  are  the  statues  and 
busts  of  his  sons  and  successors,  of  whom  Julian  the  Apostate 
is  the  latest  to  be  represented  in  busts  whose  authenticity  is 
more  than  doubtful.  There  is  still  some  ability  at  reproducing 
individual  traits,  but  the  technique  is  so  faulty  as  to  make  de- 
tailed examination  disappointing.  The  colossal  statue  on  the 
balustrade  of  the  Capitol  Square  is  thought  to  represent  Con- 
stantine II  and  to  be  from  the  Thermae  of  Constantine.  These 
works  probably  all  antedate  the  time  of  the  removal  of  the 
imperial  school  of  sculpture  from  Rome  to  Constantinople, 
shortly  before  330.  They  are  superior  to  contemporary  re- 
liefs. 

The  far  greater  strength  and  character  shown  in  the  colossal 
bronze  statue  of  Barletta,  thought  to  represent  Theodosius,  is 
another  proof  of  the  superiority  of  metal  over  marble  sculpture 
in  the  last  days  of  antique  art.  This  statue  with  the  Emperor 
holding  the  historic  Christian  standard,  the  labarum,  is  prob- 
ably typical  of  such  colossal  imperial  statues  in  the  fourth  and 
early  fifth  centuries. 

This  secular  imperial  art  was  exemplified  in  a  number  of 
later  spectacular  monuments.  The  memorial  arch  of  Valen- 
tinian  and  Theodosius  at  the  entrance  to  their  bridge  was  sur- 
mounted by  bronze  statuary  which  was  precipitated  into  the 
river  when  the  arch  fell  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  the  fragments 
that  have  been  recovered  are  now  in  the  Museo  delle  Terme. 
A  solitary  base  with  sacrifice  and  soldiers  belonging  to  a  trium- 
Q 


226  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

phal  monument  of  Diocletiam  in  the  Forum,  is  similar,  except 
for  greater  barbarism,  to  the  corresponding  bases  of  the  arch 
of  Constantine  a  few  years  later. 

Of  works  in  relief  the  best  known  are  those  on  the  arch  of 
Constantine.  In  theme  they  reproduce  the  same  subjects  com- 
monly given  on  the  arches  for  over  two  centuries  :  the  imperial 
gifts  to  the  people  (congiai'ium)  ;  the  imperial  victories;  the  em- 
blems of  the  four  seasons ;  the  groups  of  captives ;  the  river 
gods ;  the  victories.  Even  the  scenes  taken  from  earlier  monu- 
ments and  set  into  the  new  arch  are  sometimes  crudely  con- 


Sculptures  on  Arch  of  Constantine,  by  Constantine's  Sculptors,  with  Victory 
of  Mulvian  Bridge  over  Maxentius. 


nected  with  Constantine  by  substituting  his  head  for  that  of 
the  various  original  emperors  ! 

One  of  the  narrow  reliefs  of  the  time  of  Constantine  him- 
self is  of  special  interest,  as  it  gives  us  the  architecture  of  the 
Forum  at  that  time  in  its  background. 

The  recently  discovered  small  statues  of  consuls,  which 
stood  on  pedestals  in  the  Eoman  Forum,  have  at  least  furnished 
the  material  for  an  interesting  study  on  the  development  of 
the  ecclesiastical  costume  from  the  civil  official  costumes  of 
the  day.  They  are  on  about  the  same  low  level  as  the  reliefs 
on  the  arch  of  Constantine. 

Still,  life-size  or  colossal  marble  statues  were  carved  and 


SCULPTURE  227 

set  up  until  the  close  of  the  fifth  century.  None  are  more 
interesting  for  the  annals  of  the  last  days  of  paganism  than 
those  placed  in  364  and  380  in  the  atrium  of  the  House  of 
the  Vestals  and  representing  the  head  vestal,  recently  de- 
ceased. This  shows  that  until  the  very  end  the  institution 
continued  to  function. 

Before  complete  extinction  some  stray  works  seem  to  have 
been  produced  between  the  times  of  Leo  the  Great  and  Justin- 
ian; for  instance,  the  head  of  the  statue  of  an  empress  or  lady 
of  the  imperial  family,  found  in  Rome  a  few  years  ago.  The 
precision  of  the  rich  coiffure,  the  ivory-like  finish  of  the  tech- 
nique, place  it  rather  among  the  early  products  of  Byzantine 
art  than  among  those  of  the  last  Roman  sculptors.  There  is 
also  a  male  head  in  the  Capitoline,  of  an  unknown  personage 
of  the  fifth  century,  with  characteristics  that  faintly  remind  of 
archaic  Greek  or  Etruscan  treatment,  perhaps  a  development 
of  the  characteristics  noticed  in  the  bust  of  Constantine. 

Sarcophagi.  —  The  main  bulk,  however,  of  the  surviving 
sculpture  of  the  fourth,  fifth  and  sixth  centuries  is  in  the  form 
of  sarcophagi.  Until  recently  it  had  been  taken  for  granted 
that  hardly  a  half-dozen  of  these  sarcophagi  antedated  the 
reign  of  Constantine.  The  numerous  instances  of  the  use 
of  pagan  sarcophagi  for  Christian  burial  and  of  early 
Christian  sarcophagi  during  the  dark  ages,  as  at  S.  Maria 
Antiqua,  make  it  highly  probable  that  a  large  number  of  the 
finest  of  the  sarcophagi  should  be  assigned  to  the  third  century 
instead  of  to  a  later  date.  Otherwise  we  should  be  forced  to 
recognize  the  absurd  anomaly  that  the  sarcophagi  produced  by 
mere  artisans  were  far  superior  artistically  to  the  contempo- 
rary works  executed  by  the  best  artists  for  imperial  monuments, 
such  as  the  Arch  of  Constantine! 

This  use  of  earlier  sarcophagi  was  made  doubly  possible  by 
the  conditions  which  we  found  to  exist  after  the  beginning 
of  the  third  century  in  the  guilds,  by  which  hereditary  occupa- 
tion and  family  workshops  were  made  obligatory.  The  tradi- 
tional teaching  not  only  transmitted  methods  and  mannerisms 
from  father  to  son,  but  helped  to  establish  a  permanent  stock 
in  trade  —  a  collection  of  "old  masters." 


228 


CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 


The  great  majority  of  the  sarcophagus  reliefs  consist  of  scenes 
from  the  Old  Testament  and  from  the  life  and  miracles  of 
Christ,  with  a  predominance  of  the  latter.  In  the  Old  Testa- 
ment themes  the  symbolism  is  the  prominent  characteristic. 
The  correspondences  between  the  two  series  are  not  informed 
by  the  same  historic  sense  that  governs  the  later  series  in  the 
basilicas.  It  is  only  toward  the  close  of  the  period  of  the 
sarcophagi,  after  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century,  that  we  see 
the  infusion  of  some  themes  inspired  by  the  official  art  of  tri- 
umphant Christianity,  not  by  the  symbolic  and  simple  spirit 
of  the  era  of  persecution. 

It  is  when  the  sarcophagus  carver  begins  to  represent  Christ 
as   the  king  and  lawgiver,  as  triumphing   in  a   supersensual 


Sarcophagus  in  Lateran  Museum. 
(Fourth  century.) 

sphere,  that  he  enters  the  field  we  are  concerned  with.  But 
the  perfection  of  this  late  development  must  not  be  sought  in 
Eome  itself ;  it  is  to  be  found  in  Ravenna  and  in  the  south  of 
France,  especially  at  Aries,  a  favorite  metropolis  of  Constan- 
tine.  Here  sculpture  flourished  long  after  the  guilds  had  fled 
from  Rome  in  the  days  of  Alaric  (410)  and  Genseric  (455). 

There  are  two  sarcophagi  in  the  crypt  of  S.  Peter  which 
illustrate  this  tendency  of  the  school  just  before  and  after  400. 
One  was  utilized  as  the  tomb  of  Pope  Pius  II  and  has  the 
bearded  Christ  on  the  rock  with  the  four  rivers  in  the  scene  of 
the  Mission  of  the  Apostles.  The  same  scene  is  repeated  in 
another  sarcophagus  of  a  slightly  later  date,  used  in  979  as  the 


SCULPTURE 


229 


Carved  Woodeu  Doors,  S.  Sabina. 


230 


CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 


tomb  of  Gregory  V.  In  both  cases  there  are  scenes  from  the 
life  of  Christ  to  supplement  the  central  subject  of  Christ 
flanked  by  Peter  and  Paul. 

Doors  at  S.   Sabina.  —  In  a  place  by  itself  stands  the  double 
door  of  carved  cedarwood  at  S.  Sabina,  now  generally  ascribed  to 

the  time  of  Sixtus 
III  (432-440),  when 
the  church  was 
founded.  A  number 
of  its  panels  have 
disappeared,  but  the 
majority  remain  in 
good  preservation, 
though  not  in  their 
original  order.  The 
panels  are  of  two 
very  different  sizes 
as  well  as  by  at  least 
two  hands.  The 
more  perfect  artist 
is  characterized  by 
slender  figures  full 
of  action  and  life, 
and  he  also  shows 
greater  poetry  and 
idealism  in  the 
choice  and  treat- 
ment of  his  themes. 
Characteristic  of  his 
style  is  the  Adora- 
tion of  Christ  and 
the  Ascent  of  Elijah. 
To  the  other  artist 
should  be  credited 
scenes  such  as  the 
Ascension  and  the  greater  part  of  the  life  and  miracles  of 
Christ,  with  heavier  figures  and  a  historic  and  materia}  con- 
ception of  the  themes. 


Panel  of  Doors,  S.  Sabina. 
"Adoration  of  Christ." 


SCULPTURE  "231 

Originally  the  doors  presented  a  parallel  of  Old  and  New 
Testament  scenes  far  more  elaborate  than  any  on  the  sar- 
cophagi and  comparable  to  those  that  were  being  created  at 
about  this  time  in  the  frescos  and  mosaics  of  the  basilicas. 
The  Crucifixion  scene  is  famous  as  the  earliest  known.  It  is 
symbolic ;  the  three  figures  simply  stand  with  arms  out- 
stretched, but  unfastened,  for  there  are  no  crosses  behind  thera. 
One  peculiarity  is  the  grouping  of  two,  three,  or  even  four 
scenes  above  each  other  on  the  same  panel,  or  the  treatment  of 
a  single  scene  in  superposed  stories  in  the  panel.  There  is 
the  greatest  similarity  in  this  work  to  certain  ivory  carvings 
of  the  same  century  and  to  one  sarcophagus  in  the  Lateran. 
Certainly  this  art  is  not  purely  Roman. 

Metal  Sculpture.  —  If  it  is  possible  to  point  almost  with  cer- 
tainty to  a  time  when  marble  figure-carving  ceased  in  Rome, 
we  have  found  it  impossible  to  be  as  positive  about  the  sister 
branch  of  metal  sculpture.  The  records  used  in  the  Liher 
Pontijicalis  describe  a  multitude  of  statues  and  reliefs  of 
bronze,  silver  and  gold  executed  for  the  churches  during  the 
more  than  five  centuries  between  Constantine  and  the  succes- 
sors of  Charlemagne,  but  we  cannot  judge  of  their  artistic 
quality  because  none  of  them  have  survived;  the  metal  was 
too  tempting  a  spoils  and  was  all  turned  into  minted 
money. 

These  works  were  concentrated  ordinarily  around  the  high 
altar  and  were  usually  combined  with  metal  ciboria,  parapets, 
etc.,  to  form  a  brilliant  metallic  combination.  There  were 
statues  of  Christ,  angels,  apostles  and  saints  erected  on  rail- 
ings or  bases ;  cast  or  beaten  reliefs  on  rails  or  altar  fronts  or 
gables.  Occasionally  there  warS  a  secondary  group  in  connec- 
tion with  the  baptistery.  Combined  with  them  to  give  effec- 
tiveness to  the  interior  decoration  of  the  churches  were  the 
richly  colored  hangings  and  the  heavy  metal  hanging  lamps. 

The  following  is  a  contemporary  description  of  the  ciborium 
and  its  accessories  given  by  Constantine  to  the  Lateran  ba- 
silica which  will  serve  as  a  clue  to  the  series :  — 

"  A  fastidium  {i.e.  ciborium)  of  hammered  silver,  having  on 
its  main  front  the  enthroned  figure  of  the  Saviour,  5  feet  high, 


232  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

weighing  120  pounds,  and  the  twelve  apostles,  5  feet  high, 
weighing  90  pounds,  holding  crowns  of  pure  silver.  Also  on 
the  side  facing  the  apse,  the  Saviour  enthroned,  5  feet  high, 
of  pure  silver,  weighing  140  pounds,  and  four  archangels  of 
silver,  5  feet  high,  each  weighing  105  pounds,  with  lapis  lazuli 
gems  set  in  their  eyes  and  holding  staffs.  The  fastidium  it- 
self weighed  2025  pounds,  of  ductile  silver.  Its  ceiling  is  of 
pure  gold  and  the  lamp  of  pure  gold  which  hangs  from  it 
with  50  dolphin  lights,  weighs  50  pounds  and  is  held  by  chains 
weighing  25.  (Under  the  centre  of  the  architraves)  hang  four 
circular  lamps  of  pure  gold,  each  with  twenty  dolphin  lights, 
each  weighing  15  pounds." 

To  the  same  group  around  the  altar  belonged  seven  silver 
gilt  candelabra,  10  feet  high,  each  weighing  300  pounds  and 
decorated  with  reliefs  of  the  prophets.  To  the  Lateran  bap- 
tistery the  Emperor  gave  for  the  decoration  of  the  font  a  figure 
of  the  Saviour,  of  pure  silver,  5  feet  high  and  weighing  170 
pounds,  next  to  which  stood  a  figure  in  silver,  also  5  feet  high, 
of  John  the  Baptist,  weighing  125  pounds,  while  between  them 
was  a  Lamb,  of  pure  gold,  weighing  30  pounds,  from  which  the 
baptismal  waters  flowed,  and  all  around  was  a  line  of  seven 
stags  of  silver,  each  weighing  80  pounds,  from  which  the  water 
also  flowed. 

There  were  never  any  but  temporary  interruptions  in  the 
flow  of  such  gifts  as  these;  the  annals  of  Popes  Sixtus  (432- 
440),  Hilary  (461-468)  and  Symmachus  (498-514)  are  particu- 
larly rich.  When  the  above  Lateran  ciborium  and  all  its  acces- 
sories had  been  carried  off  by  the  soldiers  of  Alaric  (410),  the 
Emperor  Valentinian  replaced  it  by  another  of  almost  equal 
splendor,  also  of  silver,  and  weighing  2000  pounds.  That  it 
must  have  been  decorated  with  reliefs  and  statues  is  shown  by 
the  description  of  the  ciborium  which  Valentinian  gave  at  the 
same  time  to  the  Vatican  basilica,  which  had  the  figures  of  the 
Saviour  and  the  twelve  apostles  in  gold,  framed  in  precious 
stones,  under  arcades. 

This  tradition  was  continued  by  Pope  Symmachus,  who 
erected  over  the  high  altar  at  S.  Paul's  a  relief  in  silver,  weigh- 
ing 120  pounds,  with  figures  of  the  Saviour  and  the  twelve 


SCULPTURE  233 

apostles.  Apparently  reliefs  were  then  taking  the  place  of 
statuary. 

The  Gothic  Wars.  —  Even  the  Gothic  wars  did  not  put 
an  end  to  metal  sculpture  —  though  it  may  be  considered 
now  as  inferior  va  splendor  and  workmanship.  Pelagius  I 
(556-561)  replenished  as  best  he  could  the  church  furniture. 
Pelagius  II  (579-590)  decorated  with  silver  reliefs  the  confes- 
sions of  S.  Peter  and  S.  Lawrence.  Gregory  the  Great  (590- 
604)  placed  a  silver  ciborium  in  S.  Peter.  Honorius  I  (625- 
638)  made  silver  reliefs  for  the  confession  of  S.  Peter  and 
silvered  doors ;  a  silvered  bronze  ciborium  of  great  size  and 
silver  confession  reliefs  for  S.  Agnes. 

The  life  of  Sergius  I  (687-700)  not  only  credits  to  him  the 
making  of  a  gold  statue  of  S.  Peter,  for  his  basilica,  but 
mentions  three  gold  statues  of  the  apostle  as  existing  there. 
It  is  under  this  Pope  that  we  see  the  first  traces  of  a  substitu- 
tion of  marble  for  metal  in  ciboria  as  well  as  ambones,  a 
substitution  that  militated  against  figured  sculpture,  because 
marble  carving  was  purely  decorative,  and  marked,  perhaps,  the 
downfall  of  the  old  school  of  metal  workers  on  a  large  scale. 

Carlovingian  Works.  —  With  the  eighth  century  the  text  of 
the  Liher  Pontijicalis  begins  once  more  to  give  greater  details 
of  art  works,  and  we  can  see  that  if  the  Carlovingian  popes, 
especially  Hadrian  I  and  Leo  III,  were  thus  able  to  give  to 
the  churches  such  a  quantity  of  works  in  precious  metals,  there 
must  still  have  existed  a  school  of  metal  workers  with  some 
proficiency  in  figured  reliefs;  perhaps  even  there  was  a 
revival  in  this  as  in  other  branches.  Still,  it  probably  applied 
mainly  to  works  of  small  size,  such  as  may  still  be  studied 
in  the  unique  papal  treasury  of  the  Sancta  Sanctorum  chapel 
at  the  Lateran,  recently  made  known  after  centuries  of  con- 
cealment. An  example  of  these  Carlovingian  works  is  a  gift 
of  Leo  IV  to  the  Vatican  basilica,  where  he  placed  a  silver 
image  of  Christ  enthroned,  flanked  by  two  angels  and  with 
the  figures  of  the  twelve  apostles  and  the  twenty-four  elders 
on  either  side  of  the  throne. 

Between  works  of  metal  sculpture  that  have  been  destroyed, 
and   marble   sculptures   that   are  merely  decorative,  there  is 


234  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

therefore  a  hiatus  in  our  knowledge  of  figured  sculpture  at 
Rome  between  the  sixth  and  the  eleventh  centuries,  except  in 
the  case  of  a  few  works  of  small  size.  , 

Revival  in  Twelfth  Century.  —  The  revival  in  sculpture  that 
swept  Europe  during  the  latter  part  of  the  eleventh  and  the 
beginning  of  the  twelfth  centuries  did  not  affect  Rome  per- 
ceptibly. While  the  Lombard  and  Tuscan  schools  were  mul- 
tiplying sculptures,  barbarous,  it  is  true,  but  showing  constant 
effort  at  improvement,  and  adding  materially  to  decorative  effect 
in  connection  with  architecture,  Roman  artists  did  not  allow 
it  to  enter  into  their  new  scheme.  It  is  a  fact  that  the  farther 
one  goes  southward  in  Italy  during  the  Middle  Ages  the  less 
does  sculpture  play  its  part  and  the  more  is  its  place  taken  by 
color.^  The  large  strain  of  Byzantinism  in  Rome  also  helped 
to  delay  the  plastic  development.  And  yet  there  were  some 
curious  and  original  sporadic  efforts,  leading  up  to  a  half  century 
of  successful  and  artistic  work  just  before  the  end  of  the  school's 
career,  —  a  half-century  when  the  Roman  sculptors  were  rivals 
and  collaborators  of  the  Pisans  in  certain  branches  of  the  art. 

One  general  fact  is  characteristic :  the  school  never  once 
attempted  to  coordinate  figured  sculpture  with  the  structure 
of  its  churches.  There  were  no  carved  lintels  or  archi volts ; 
no  galleries  or  arcades  filled  with  statuary,  no  porches  with 
columnar  figures,  no  faqade  reliefs.  These  features,  so 
common  in  Lombardy,  Tuscany  and  Apulia,  were  taboo  in 
Rome.     There  were  not  even  any  figured  capitals. 

In  church  furniture  the  prevailing  fashion  of  mosaic  inlay 
shut  the  door  against  sculptured  decoration  in  more  than  one 
direction.  For  instance,  it  was  in  the  form  of  pulpits  that 
Niccola  Pisano  gave  his  main  masterpieces ;  that  of  the  Pisan 
baptistery  (1260)  and  that  of  Siena  cathedral  (1268),  which  his 
son  Giovanni  followed  in  those  of  Pisa  cathedral  and  Pistoia 
(S.  Andrea),  not  to  mention  many  others  by  the  Pisan  school. 
The  Roman  love  for  color  and  for  complete  unity  of  design  in 
interior  decoration  prevented  their  adoption  of  sculpture  in  a 
single  pulpit. 

1  The  exceptional  use  of  decorative  sculpture  in  the  province  of  Apslia  is 
probably  due  to  Northern  emigration. 


SCULPTURE 


235 


Architectural  figured  sculpture  and  the  decoration  of  church 
furniture  being  excluded,  let  us  see  what  use  the  Roman  school 
did  make  of  figured  sculpture. 

The  earliest  piece  is  a  baptismal  font  in  the  abbey  church  at 
Grottaferrata,  near  Rome.  Its  circular  surface  is  covered  with 
a  scene  symbolic  of  the  sacrament  of  baptism  and  its  effects. 
Upon  a  high  rock  on  which  is  carved  a  gateway  are  seated  two 
nude  figures,  catching  fish  that  swim  in  the  encircling  seas  and 
drawing  them  upward. 
On  the  left  side  a  column 
rises  high  above  the 
\vaters,  and  from  it  a  nude 
figure  is  casting  himself 
headlong  into  the  water. 
The  sea  is  the  world,  into 
which  Christ  descended 
to  lose  His  life,  so  that 
He  might  become  the 
great  Fisher  of  men  and 
keep  them  from  drifting 
through  the  gates  of  hell. 
The  extreme  symbolism 
and  the  use  of  the  nude, 
clumsy  as  it  is,  are  both 
characteristics,  not  of 
Lombard  or  other  North- 
ern artists,  but  of  some 
Byzantine  school.  This 
is  historically  confirmed 
by  the  fact  that  the  mon- 
astery of  Grottaferrata 
was  built  and  inhabited  by  Greek  monks,  and  that  its  mosaics 
and  early  decoration  are  purely  Byzantine. 

To  this  Byzantine  font  of  the  eleventh  century,  which  served 
as  first  model  to  the  Roman  school,  we  can  compare  a  curious 
somewhat  later  work  of  purely  Roman  art,  the  sacred  well- 
head of  S.  Bartolommeo  all'  Isola,  which  probably  dates  after 
the  time  of  Paschal  II  (1113).     Its  circular  surface  is  covered 


Well  of  Relics  at  S.  Bartolommeo  all'  Isola. 
(Twelfth  century.) 


236  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

with  the  large  figures  of  Christ  and  of  the  martyrs  whose 
relics  were  placed  below,  Bishops  Adalbert  and  Paulinus  and 
S.  Bartholomew.  They  stand  under  arcades  and  gables.  The 
composition  is  in  every  way  an  evident  copy  of  Roman  sar- 
cophagi, especially  of  those  early  Christian  examples  with 
single  figures  standing  under  such  arcades  separated  by 
columns. 

Equally  a  copy  from  antique  models  is  a  somewhat  later, 
though  cruder  work,  the  paschal  candlestick  in  the  basilica 
of  S.  Paul.     It  is  signed  by  two  Roman  artists 
who  worked  after  the  middle  of  the  twelfth 
century:  Ego  Niconaus  de  Angelo  cum  Petro 
Bassaletto  hoc  opus  complevi.     The  entire  sur- 
face   of   the  column  is   covered  with   small 
figures  in  relief,  in  superposed  rows,  repro- 
ducing incidents  of  the  life  of  Christ,  includ- 
ing the  Passion  and  Christ  in  glory.    It  seems 
a  far-away  miniature  echo  of  Roman  memorial 
columns,  like  other  larger  works,  of  substan- 
tially the  same  age,  beginning  with  the  bronze 
column  of  Bern  ward  at  Hildesheim  (c.  1000) 
and  ending  with  the  marble  column  in  the 
cathedral  square  at  Gaeta  (c.  1330).     In  style 
the  figures  are  no  better  and  no  worse  than 
contemporary  work  everywhere  else  in  Italy, 
if  we  except  certain  charming  and  delicate 
Byzantine  reliefs,  such  as  those  at  the  Pisan 
baptistery.     The  finish  is  crude  and  the  pro- 
portions heavy,  with  enormous  heads,  though 
the  general  design  is  felicitous. 
Paschal  Candlestick      Statuary.  —  But  where  the  Roman  sculptor 
at  S.Paolo.        began   to   show   unusual   originality    as   the 
By  Niccoio  di  Anpeio   thirteenth  ccutury  advanced  is  in  the  revival 
andPietro  Vassaietto.,  ^^  gculpturc  in  the  rouud.     The  Romau  artist 
had  at  this  time  acquired  a  great  facility  and  firmness  in  han- 
dling  marble,  and  after  he  had  successfully  reproduced  the 
antique  methods  and  styles  in  decorative  work,  in  capitals, 
mouldings  and  cornices,  it  seemed  a  natural  transition  for  him 


SCULPTURE  237 

to  imitate  also  the  numerous  draped  statues  that  might  easily 
serve  as  models  for  apostles  and  saints.  Natural,  perhaps, 
and  yet  a  leap  into  the  unknown,  for  had  not  some  seven 
centuries  elapsed  since  the  chisel  had  fallen  from  the  impotent 
hands  of  the  last  carver  of  an  image  in  the  round  in  Rome 
and  the  entire  West  ? 

The  great  leader  in  the  revival  of  Italian  sculpture,  Niccola 
Pisano  himself,  cannot  be  said  to  have  produced  such  a  work 
unless  we  attribute  to  him  the  seated  statue  of  the  Emperor 
Frederic  II  on  the  triumphal  arch  at  Capua ;  and  the  success  in 
this  style  of  work  of  his  colleague  Arnolfo  was  due  to  his  resi- 
dence in  Rome.  That  the  Roman  artists  of  this  age  were  alive 
to  the  influence  of  Roman  statuary  is  shown  by  the  statue  of 
Aesculapius,  with  the  signature  of  one  of  the  Vassalletti,  found 
in  the  school's  workshop,  and  evidently  used  as  a  model. 

There  are  two  statues  of  SS.  Peter  and  Paul,  about  life-size, 
which  originally  stood  in  front  of  the  faqade  of  S.  John  Lateran. 
They  present  the  traditional  types,  such  as  we  find  in  mosaics 
and  frescos  of  the  twelfth  century.  Though  heavy  and  clumsy 
in  proportions,  they  yet  have  all  the  interest  of  pioneer  work, 
and  are  frankly  classic  in  their  aspirations.  The  treatment  of 
details  in  the  Lateran  statues  is  excellent ;  the  hair  and  beard 
have  as  much  finish  as  in  Cavallini's  frescos.  The  simple 
tunic  and  toga  have  broad  and  natural  folds.  While  the  effect 
is  that  of  pure  statuary,  these  figures  were  set  against  a  marble 
ground  decorated  with  mosaic  bands  and  circles ;  and  this 
makes  it  logical  to  connect  with  them,  as  forming  a  single 
group,  the  kneeling  statue  (or  very  high  relief)  of  a  ]*ope,  with 
exactly  similar  background,  which  has  been  commonly  called  a 
figure  of  Pope  Nicholas  IV  (1288-1292),  simply  because  of  its 
single  tiara,  which  points  to  a  predecessor  of  Boniface  VIII, 
who  was  the  first  to  adopt  the  triple  tiara.  The  difference  in 
treatment  between  apostles  and  Pope  is  due  to  the  contrast 
between  the  free  use  of  types  and  classic  costume  in  one  case, 
and  the  attempt  at  portraiture  and  ecclesiastical  costume  on 
the  other.  While  it  is  difficult  to  be  positive  in  face  of  such 
unusual  works,  I  am  inclined  to  regard  this  group  as  earlier 
than  Arnolfo  and  earlier  even  than  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth 


238 


CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  MONUMENTS 


century.  It  was  perhaps  the  most  important  work  of  sculpture 
in  Rome,  holding  the  place  of  honor  in  the  atrium  of  the 
Lateran  basilica. 

Similar  statues  existed  at  S.  Peter,  where  they  can  be  seen 
in  the  crypt,  and  S.  Croce  in  Gerusalemme.  The  latter  are 
much  smaller  and  much  later,  showing  a  refinement  of  form 
and  a  polish  of  surface  treatment  that  savor  of  foreign  in- 
fluence, but  far  from  being  an  improvement  on  the  burly  but 


Statue  of  S.  Peter  at  S.  John 
Lateran. 


Statue  of  S.  Peter  at  S.  Croce 
in  Gerusalemme. 


impressive  Lateran  figures.      In  fact,  they  may  be  part  of  a 
ciborium  attributable  to  the  time  of  Urban  V  (c.  1370). 

There  is  some  work  nearly  or  wholly  in  the  round  at  the 
Lateran  cloister  which  helps  to  assign  a  date  to  the  Lateran 
statues.  The  cloister  was  erected  between  1220  and  1230  by 
one  of  the  greatest  masters  of  the  Roman  school,  Yassallettus 
or  Vassalletto.  His  feeling  for  the  round  is  shown  not  only  in 
the  sphinxes  that  flank  the  entrances,  and  are  clear  reproduc- 
tions of  the  antique,  but  in  some  heads  that  project  from  the 


SCULPTURE 


239 


outer  cornice  of  the  court.  They  are  so  full  of  vigorous  char- 
acter and  spiritual  life  that  they  can  stand  in  the  same  class  as 
similar  contemporary  works  of  the  sort  in  some  French  cathe- 


Detail  of  frieze  of  Laterau  Cloister  by  Vassaletlo. 

drals  (e.g.  Eeims)  and  others  by  Niccola  Pisano  and  in  the  pul- 
pit at  Ravello.  They  are  mostly  youthful  heads,  types  of 
pages  and  young  aristocrats,  with  an  occasional  monk  and  old 
woman.    Delicately  silhouetted  in  firm  and  well-marked  planes, 


240  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

they  produce  an  effect  more  sparkling  than  anything  of  this 
class  in  Italian  art.  One  suspects  an  infusion  of  Gallic  salt. 
A  recent  writer,  finding  some  spirited  heads  on  the  tomb  of 
Hadrian  V  and  comparing  them  with  others  by  Arnolfo  and 
Mccola  Pisano,  has  used  them  as  an  argument  for  the  attribu- 
tion of  this  tomb  to  Arnolfo,  and  has  ascribed  to  Niccola,  whose 
early  work  does  not  antedate  1250,  the  merit  of 
conceiving  this  class  of  delicate  creations  —  a 
merit  which  these  Lateran  heads  prove  to  belong 
to  the  Roman  A^assalletto,  in  about  1225.  The 
quality  of  vitality,  so  absolutely  lacking  hitherto 
in  Italian  sculpture,  appears  therefore  for  the 
first  time  in  Vassalletto.  Either  the  Lateran 
statues  precede  him,  or  are  by  a  master  of  less 
power.  The  son  of  this  Vassalletto  inherited 
his  father's  talent;  witness  the  spirited  little 
kneeling  figure  on  his  paschal  candlestick  at 
Anagni. 

f.^  While  the  works  I  have  just  mentioned  are 
almost  unnoticed  by  historians  of  art,  there  is 
one  statue  which  has  not  been  overlooked, 
partly  because  of  its  historic  interest.  It  is 
the  seated  statue  of  King  Charles  of  Anjou, 
which  the  Roman  Senate  ordered  set  up  in 
"^^^  ^I,  Paschal  ^-j^^  Capitol  in  his  honor  when  the  king  became 
Candlestick  at      .    .        \  •-      •      ^o/-o         j 

Cathedral,  CIVIC  rulcr  of  the  city  m  1268,  and  was  maugu- 

Anagni,  by  rated  as  senator.  As  a  portrait,  the  head  is 
Vassalletto.  characteristic  and  interesting ;  as  a  work  of  art, 
the  statue  is  stiff  and  awkward,  decidedly  inferior  to  its  more 
classic  immediate  predecessor,  the  statue  of  the  Emperor 
Frederic  at  Capua.  The  king  wears  a  crown  and  holds  a 
sceptre,  but  this  medisevalism  is  tempered  by  a  Roman  cos- 
tume and  the  curule  chair.  The  stern  face,  with  its  prominent 
features,  and  the  large  head  form  a  carefully  studied  portrait. 
The  extreme  shortness  of  the  upper  limbs  indicates  that  the 
statue  originally  stood  on  a  high  pedestal.  It  is  a  grim 
record  of  this  tamer  of  Popes  and  destroyer  of  the  imperial 
power  in  Italy.  •' 


SCULPTURE 


241 


.■■■■■■ 


This  statue,  the  second  of  its  class  in  Italy,  has  been  attrib- 
uted to  Arnolfo,  the  Florentine  architect  and  sculptor,  and  has 
been  used  as  an  argument  for  assigning  to  the  same  artist  the 
bronze  statue  of  S.  Peter,  for  which  I  have  adhered  to  the  tra- 
ditional date  of  the  fifth  century.  I  can  trace  as  little  resem- 
blance in  style  as  in  material. 

Tombs.  —  During  this  same  decade  (1260-1270)  the  Roman 
school,  after  having  thus  attempted  to  revive  statuary,  perfected 
a  type  of  sepulchral  monu- 
ment by  combining  the 
three  arts  of  architecture, 
sculpture  and  painting  in 
a  form  that  was  to  affect 
Italian  art  even  as  late 
as  the  Renaissance.  Until 
recently  there  had  been  no 
fixed  type  of  funeral  monu- 
ment, no  purely  mediaeval 
creation.  In  the  majority 
of  cases  the  body  was  placed 
in  some  pagan  or  early 
Christian  sarcophagus,  of 
which  so  many  were  always 
coming  to  light.  In  the 
twelfth  century  we  find  for 
the  first  time  a  homogene- 
ous type  of  which  thert 
are  examples  in  the  atria 
of  S.  Maria  in  Cosmedin 
(tomb  of  Alfanus)  and  S. 
Lorenzo.  Here  a  plain  sarcophagus  is  surmounted  by  a  gable 
resting  on  columns  and  the  recess  is  filled  with  a  fresco;  or 
else  four  columns  support  a  plain  low  canopy  over  the  sarcoph- 
agus :    but  there  was  no  sculpture,  either  figured  or  decorative. 

This  type  was  developed  and  culminated  in  the  middle  of 
the  thirteenth  century  in  the  tomb  of  Cardinal  Fieschi  at  S. 
Lorenzo  (1256),  where  a  finely  carved  classic  sarcophagus  is 
surrounded  by  a  large  architraved  and  gabled  canopy  which 


Tomb  of  Cardinal  Fieschi  at  S.  Lorenzo. 


242 


CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 


encloses  a  fresco  of  the  Virgin  and  Child  accompanied  by  saints 
and  adored  by  the  defunct. 

Soon  after  this,  a  leader  of  the  Koman  school,  Peter,  son  of 
Oderisius,  made  the  first  attempt  to  introduce  both  sculpture 
and  mosaic  decoration  in  sepulchral  art,  in  his  tomb  of  Pope 
Clement  IV  at  Viterbo  in  1268.     At  least,  if  there  were  any 

earlier  examples  of  this 
type,  they  have  perished : 
the  monument  of  Cardi- 
nal Bernardo  Caraccioli 
(t  1261)  at  the  Lateran, 
of  which  only  the  statue 
remains,  may  have  been 
such  an  example.  In 
doing  this  he  also  for  the 
first  time  substituted  for 
the  antique  architrave  and 
classic  orders,  the  Gothic 
trefoil  arch  and  foliated 
capitals.  It  was  quite  a 
revolution.  The  accom- 
panying illustration  of  the 
tomb  of  Hadrian  V,  made 
only  a  few  years  later,  also 
at  Viterbo,  is  of  a  similar 
type,  but  by  an  artist  of 
greater  plastic  skill,  who 
gave  more  charming  lines  and  more  delicate  ornamentation  to 
his  design,  and  showed  himself  a  masterly  sculptor  in  the 
reclining  figure  and  the  carved  details,  —  probably  Arnolfo. 

The  tomb  of  Clement  IV  is  unusual  in  having  as  its  annex 
that  of  his  nephew,  Pierre  le  Gros.  The  Pope's  effigy  is  tilted 
forward  to  meet  the  eye  ;  that  of  Pierre,  being  below,  lies  per- 
fectly flat.  They  are  not  by  the  same  hand.  The  Pope's  is  a 
painstaking  portrait,  even  to  the  heavily  marked  lines  of  chin 
and  neck,  and  the  heavy  folds  of  draper}^  are  both  effective 
and  artistic.  The  two  defunct  were  French ;  the  man  charged 
by  the  cardinals  with  ordering  the  monument  was  a  French- 


Tomb  of  the  Savelli  at  S.  Maria  in  Aracoeli 
(With  use  of  ancient  sarcophagus.) 


SCULPTURE 


243 


man,  Peter,  archbishop  of  Narbonne.  Why  is  it  not  natural 
to  suppose  that  the  Roman  artist's  adoption  of  both  sculpture 
and  Gothic  design  were  due  to  French  influence,  since  reclin- 
ing figures  were  then  a  commonplace  of  French  sculpture, 
whereas  they  were  yet  unknown  in  Italy  ?  The  monument  as 
it  stands  gives  but  little  idea  of  the  original,  and  is  due  to  a 
reconstruction  from  existing  frag- 
ments. Originally  the  canopy  was 
far  loftier  and  enclosed  a  group  of 
statuary,  the  Virgin  and  Child  and 
probably  some  saints  and  the  Pope, 
as  in  the  later  monument  of  Cardi- 
nal de  Braye.  Most  of  the  mosaic 
decoration,  also,  has  disappeared. 

Even  more  drastic  has  been  the 
damage  suffered  by  the  tomb  of 
the  famous  prefect  of  Rome,  Peter 
de  Vico,  executed  in  the  same  year 
(1268),  in  the  same  design,  for  the 
same  church  at  Viterbo  (S.  Maria 
ai  Gradi),  evidently  by  the  same 
artist.  Even  its  statue  has  dis- 
appeared. 

Arnolfo.  —  The  master  who  dom- 
inated the  school  for  the  last 
quarter  of  the  century  now  ap- 
pears on  the  scene,  Arnolfo  di 
I.apo.  He  is  the  famous  Floren- 
tine architect  and  sculptor,  a  con- 
temporary and  early  coadjutor  of 

I^iccola  Pisano,  whose  artistic  activity  centred  in  Rome  during 
the  best  part  of  his  career.  He  assimilated  so  much  of  the 
spirit  of  the  Roman  school,  especially  from  the  Vassalletti, 
that  it  is  difficult  not  to  regard  him  as  part  of  it.  At  the 
same  time  he  added  to  its  patrimony  a  distinct  element 
through  his  greater  plastic  sense,  which  led  to  the  increased 
use  of  sculpture  in  church  furniture,  especially  in  ciboria  and 
sepulchral  monuments. 


Tomb    of    Pope    Hadrian    V, 
S.  Francesco,  Viterbo. 


244 


CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 


Arnolfo's  career  cannot  yet  be  clearly  traced.  He  had  a 
share  in  the  pulpit  at  Siena,  assisting  Niccola  Pisano  in  1268. 
When,  in  1277,  Charles  of  Anjou  released  him  to  complete  this 
sculptor's  beautiful  fountain  at  Perugia,  Arnolfo  had  probably 
been  working  in  or  near  Eome,  though  at  what  we  cannot  tell 
unless  it  was  on  the  destroyed  monument  of  Innocent  V.     The 

monument  to  Cardi- 
nal Kiccardo  Anni- 
baldi,  done  at  this 
time  (1276-1277), 
of  which  many  frag- 
ments remain  at  the 
Lateran,  has  been 
recently  attributed 
to  him  on  account  of 
its  plastic  beauty. 
Tlie  frieze  in  high 
relief  which  origin- 
ally stood  under  the 
canopy,  over  the  re- 
clining figure,  and  is 
now  in  the  Cloister, 
strikes  a  very  indi- 
vidual note.  It  is  a 
procession  of  figures 
of  clerics  in  high 
relief,  bearing  an  in- 
cense-burner, book, 
candles  and  mitre 
for  the  celebration  of  the  funeral  service.  The  ease  of  move- 
ment, variety  and  naturalness  of  action,  perfection  of  workman- 
ship, make  of  this  little-known  "work  one  of  the  most  charming 
pieces  of  the  early  Renaissance  of  Italian  sculpture.  Or  he 
may  have  been  engaged  on  the  monument  of  Hadrian  V  at 
Yiterbo  (S.  Francesco),  a  superb  masterpiece  which  Venturi 
attributes  to  him  —  instead  of  to  Vassallettus  II,  as  I  had 
suggested.  The  face  of  Hadrian  certainly  has  the  softn.ess 
of  texture  and  the  smooth  gradations  that  we  shall  later  find 


Ciborinm  at  S.  Cecilia,  by  Arnolfo. 


SCULPTURE  245 

in  authentic  works  of  Arnolfo,  though  the  slender  proportions 
are  quite  different  from  his  usual  massive  norm. 

After  1282  we  find  him  erecting  the  monument  of  Cardinal 
de  Braye  in  S.  Domenico  at  Perugia.  His  signature  is  at  the 
bottom  of  the  memorial  metrical  inscription :  Hoc  opus  fecit 
Ariiolfus.  It  is  distinctly  an  amplification  of  the  type  inaugu- 
rated fourteen  years  before  by  Pietro  Oderisi  in  the  tomb  of 
Clement  IV,  and  more  of  its  sculptures  have  been  preserved, 
though  its  effect  is  destroyed  by  the  loss  of  the  trefoil  taber- 
nacle that  formed  its  original  framework.  When  still  perfect, 
it  was  the  most  sumptuous  combination  of  mosaic  work  and 
sculpture  saved  from  the  ravages  of  the  Renaissance,  surpass- 
ing even  all  known  monuments  of  the  Popes.  The  lower  base- 
ment supported  the  two  shafts  of  the  canopy,  now  destroyed. 
The  second  section  is  a  cenotaph  on  which  rests  the  body  of 
the  deceased  on  a  draped  bier.  Above  it  projects  a  pitch  roof 
from  which  curtains  hang,  drawn  away  from  the  front  by  two 
angels.  Over  the  canopy  on  a  flaring  base  is  a  symmetrical 
composition.  In  the  centre  the  dedicatory  inscription  ;  above, 
in  a  pointed  niche,  the  enthroned  Virgin  and  Child ;  on  one 
side  the  kneeling  cardinal,  presented  by  S.  Paul,  and  on  the 
other  S.  Dorainick  —  all  gazing  toward  the  divine  Child. 

There  are  qualities  here  that  do  not  reappear  in  the  other 
known  works  by  Arnolfo :  a  slenderness  of  proportion,  a  pro- 
jection in  the  draperies,  a  delicacy  of  type,  an  almost  over- 
refinement  and  asceticism.  The  feeling  of  life  culminates  in 
overaction  in  the  angels,  perhaps  a  relic  of  the  influence  of 
Giovanni's  funa^  which  will  wear  off  after  more  protracted 
contact  with  the  calm  classic  masterpieces  of  Rome,  whose 
influence  is  also  to  give  greater  solidity  to  Arnolfo's  figures. 

Arnolfo's  next  signed  and  dated  work  is  the  ciborium  of  S. 
Paul  in  Rome,  in  which  he  was  assisted  by  an  artist  named 
Pietro,  who  has  been  without  proof  identified  with  the  painter 
Pietro  Cavallini.  There  are  but  too  many  Roman  artists 
named  Pietro  in  the  thirteenth  century !  This  work  is  both 
signed  and  dated,  1285.  Hoc  opus  fecit  Amolfus  cum  »iio  socio 
Petro.  The  Gothic  design  is  here  first  applied  to  the  altar  canopy 
transforming  it  as  the  tomb  had  been  transformed  twenty  years 


246  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

before.  Its  four  superb  columns  of  rosso  antico  have  capitals 
of  almost  purely  French  Gothic  design.  The  pointed  structure 
they  support,  with  its  pinnacles  and  gables,  is  a  harmonious 
combination  of  mosaic  and  sculpture. 

The  sculpture  on  this  ciborium  is  unusually  interesting 
because  it  is  probably  the  earliest  of  its  class  and  therefore  an 
epoch-making  creation,  which  was  to  set  the  fashion  for  the 


Monument  of  Cardinal  Ancher  at  S.  Prassede,  by  Arnolfo. 

next  generation.  At  each  corner  is  a  statuette  ;  those  on  the 
front  are  S.  Peter  and  S.  Paul.  In  the  pendentives  is  a  scene 
in  relief,  divided  into  two  parts  by  the  arch  ;  e.g.  the  abbot 
Bartholomew  offering  the  model  of  the  ciborium  to  S.  Paul. 
The  gable  is  filled  with  a  wheel-window  supported  by  two 
flying  angels,  —  one  of  the  peculiarities  in  which  Arnolfo 
betrays  the  growing  influence  of  the  antique,  for  they  are 
neither  more  nor  less  than  Roman  Victories. 

To  the  following  year  (1286)  I  am  disposed  to  attribute^^he 
superb  statue  of  an  otherwise  destroyed  monument:  that  of 


SCULPTURE 


247 


Cardinal  Ancher  in  S.  Prassede.  Here  we  see  the  soft  pastoso 
treatment  of  the  face  so  characteristic  of  Aruolfo,  used  in  so 
masterly  a  manner  as  to  be  by  none  but  the  master.  It  is,  in 
fact,  superior  to  the  authenticated  statue  of  Boniface  VIII. 
The  handling  of  the  drapery  is  equally  masterly  in  its  feeling 
for  textures.  This  tomb  should  be  restored  with  basement  and 
canopy  and  probably  with  votive  sculptures.  This  work  had 
not  been  as  yet  attributed  to  Arnolfo. 

Shortly   after   (1287)  Arnolfo  executed   the   monument   of 
Honorius  IV  in  S.  Peter's,  a  work  that  suffered  the  fate  of 


Detail  of  Opening  to  Chapi^l  of  tlie  Presepe,  S.  Maria  Maggiore. 
A  Prophet,  by  Arnolfo. 


nearly  all  the  works  of  art  in  the  old  basilica  when  it  was  torn 
down.  Only  the  recumbent  statue  was  saved  and  transferred 
to  decorate  the  tomb  of  the  Savelli  family  (to  which  the  Pope 
belonged)  in  the  church  of  Aracoeli. 

To  Arnolfo  is  to  be  credited  another  conspicuous  novelty,  in 
another  of  the  great  basilicas,  S.  Maria  Maggiore.  This 
basilica  was  called  ad  pt'oeaepe,  from  containing  the  relic  of  the 
Manger  of  Bethlehem.  To  provide  a  fitting  shrine  for  it.  Pope 
Nicholas  IV  (1288-1292)  erected  a  chapel  which  is  the  prototype 
of  the  sacred  tableaux  in  the  round,  of  marble,  terracotta  or 
wood  carving,  so  numerous  in  Northern  Italian,  such  as  those 
of  Modena  and  Varallo.  This  little  chapel,  now  moved  under- 
ground and  transformed,  is  occupied  by   a  life-size  group  of 


248 


CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  MONUMENTS 


the  Magi  adoring  the  Infant  Christ  in  the  arms  of  the  Virgin. 
At  its  entrance,  over  the  door,  two  small  figures  of  prophets 
in  high  relief  occupy  the  pendentives.  They  are  full  of  alert 
awkwardness  and  sharpness  of  line,  and  their  counterparts  by 
Niccola  Pisano  and  Giovanni  may  be  seen  in  their  pulpits. 
The  group  of  statues  within  the  shrine  is  less  successful.     In 

it  there  is  an  attempt 
to  transpose  into 
statuary  the  pictorial 
scheme  of  composi- 
tion. In  the  centre 
are  the  Virgin  and 
Child  on  a  throne, 
restored.  On  their 
right  is  the  bearded 
figure  of  Joseph, 
leaning  forward  on 
his  staff.  From  their 
left  the  Magi  are  ap- 
proaching, in  order  of 
age.  The  oldest,  with 
flowing  beard,is  kneel- 
ing, while  the  other 
two  are  conversing. 
The  composition  is 
easy,  but  the  figures 
are  clumsy,  though 
the  drapery  is  flow- 
ing and  classic.  The 
heaviness  of  the  figure  is  unexpected  when  one  remembers  the 
slenderness  of  those  on  the  De  Braye  monument.  But  it  has 
been  rightly  ascribed  to  Arnolfo  for  several  centuries. 

The  design  of  the  ciborium  of  S.  Cecilia  in  1292  is  an  im- 
provement on  that  of  S.  Paul's  in  harmony.  There  was  no 
dedicatory  tablet  to  break  up  the  architectural  lines,  and  the 
simpler  arrangement  of  the  corner  statuettes  does  away  with  the 
awkward  juxtaposition  of  overhanging  niche  and  column.  The 
sculpture  is  entirely  by  the  hand  of  Arnolfo.   The  statuettes  are 


m$  V  ' 

^H^ 

^    1    1   ' 

Angle  of  Ciborium  at  S.  Cecilia,  by  Arnolfo. 


SCULPTURE  249 

connected  with  the  legend  of  S.  Cecilia  and  represent  the  con- 
temporary Pope  Urban,  her  brother,  Tiburtiiis,  her  husband, 
Valerian  and  herself.  In  the  pendentives  are  the  Evangelists 
and  their  symbols,  the  apostles  Peter  and  Paul  and  two  female 
saints.  Angels  of  classic  type  hold  the  wheel-windows  in  the 
gables.  All  the  figures  stand  out  from  a  mosaic  ground  and  are 
richly  colored.  The  effect  is  even  more  pictorial  than  at  S. 
Paolo,  and  there  is  far  greater  suppleness  and  skill  in  the 
handling.  Of  course  Arnolfo  was  assisted  by  a  mosaicist  and 
painter. 

Probably  Arnolfo's  last  work  in  Kome  was  the  chapel  and 
monument  of  Boniface  VIII  (1294-1303).  Some  critics  have 
been  sceptical  as  to  his  authorship  of  it  because  the  artist  died 
about  two  years  before  the  pope,  but  their  scruples  were  unnec- 
essary for  it  is  well  ascertained  that  the  Pope  had  Arnolfo 
make  in  S.  Peter  the  chapel  dedicated  to  his  namesake  Boni- 
face IV  during  his  own  lifetime  and  had  his  own  monument 
prepared  at  the  same  time.  If  further  proof  were  needed,  there 
was  the  signature  of  Arnolfo,  reported  before  its  destruction 
by  several  writers  of  the  Renaissance  :  Hoc  opus  fecit  Aniolphus 
architectus,  alone  sufficient,  also,  to  prove  the  identity  of  Arnolfo 
the  sculptor  with  Arnolfo  the  architect.  The  statue  was  orig- 
inally surmounted  by  a  mosaic  of  the  Virgin  and  Child  in  a 
medallion,  to  whom  the  kneeling  Pope  is  being  presented  by  S. 
Peter,  while  S.  Paul  stands  on  the  other  side.  The  mosaic 
was  by  Giovanni  Cosmati.  The  whole  was  framed  by  a  very 
rich  ciborium  in  which  Arnolfo  combined  the  old  architraved 
style  with  an  elaborate  grouping  of  Gothic  pinnacles  and  niches. 
The  statue  itself  is  full  of  repose,  and  is  in  Arnolfo's  later 
pastoso  manner,  even  softer  than  that  of  Ancher  and  more 
easy  in  pose  than  that  of  Honorius  IV.  A  bust  of  Boni- 
face VIII,  also  in  the  crypt,  probably  belonged  to  the  same 
chapel. 

There  exist  at  S.  Peter's  and  in  its  crypt  a  number  of 
statues  that  are  torn  from  their  original  monuments,  from 
tombs  and  ciboria.  We  can  only  conjecture  that  two  beautiful 
angels  in  the  crypt,  still  holding  back  folds  of  drapery,  may 
have  belonged  to  Arnolfo's  tomb  of  Boniface  VIII.     Another 


250  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

angel,  now  flanking  the  seated  marble  statue  of  S.  Peter,  is 
also  in  his  later  style  (see  p.  143). 

The  marble  statue  of  S.  Peter,  now  in  the  crypt,  which  has 
just  been  alluded  to,  was  once  in  great  veneration  in  the  old 
basilica.  It  is  an  extremely  rare  example  of  mediaeval  adaptar 
tion  of  antique  work.  The  statue  itself  is  certainly  Roman ; 
the  head  and  hands  are  the  work  of  some  good  sculptor  of  the 
age  of  Arnolfo,  for  such  soft  treatment  of  flesh  and  hair  can- 
not be  earlier. 

Meanwhile  other  sculptors  of  less  developed  art  were  pro- 
ducing works  in  Rome  of  considerable  interest.  In  the  Lateran 
basilica  is  a  fragment  from  the  chapel  of  S.  Mary  Magdalen, 
where  the  figures  of  Christ  and  of  the  Cardinal  of  Milan  pre- 
sented by  John  the  Baptist,  and  offering  the  model  of  the 
chapel,  are  careful  studies  in  portraiture  and  type,  but  rather 
labored  and  not  rising  to  beauty  of  line  and  form.  They  are 
set  against  the  same  mosaic  ground  that  has  appeared  in 
Arnolfo's  work.  It  seems  characteristic  of  the  Roman  school. 
Polychromy  played  a  greater  part  in  sculpture  than  was  the 
case  with  any  other  school.  First  of  all,  the  marble  figures 
were  placed  usually  in  a  colored  setting  and  often  against  a 
mosaic  background.  This  was  brilliantly  successful  in  Arnolfo's 
ciboria  at  S.  Paolo  and  S.  Cecilia,  and  in  the  procession  of  clerics 
at  the  Lateran.  The  color  scheme  is  continued  in  the  inlaid 
surfaces  of  colonnettes  and  slabs  and  in  the  compositions  in 
mosaic  and  fresco  that  surmount  the  sarcophagi  in  the  sepul- 
chral monuments.  But,  more  than  this,  the  carving  itself  was 
strongly  colored  both  in  drapery  and  flesh ;  witness  the  same 
ciboria,  the  statues  of  Clement  IV,  Boniface  VIII  and  Hono- 
rius  IV.  The  angels'  wings  are  solidly  gilt;  the  details  of 
garment-patterns,  of  architectural  and  other  accessories,  are 
minutely  picked  out  in  color.  Of  course  a  great  deal  of  this 
is  restoration,  but  probably  on  the  original  lines. 

The  family  of  Cosmatus  furnished  two  sculptors  whose  work 
is  contemporary  with  the  last  years  of  Arnolfo.  Their  names 
are  Deodato  and  Giovanni,  two  of  the  four  known  sons  of  Cos- 
matus. Of  the  two,  Deodato  was  the  more  subtle  and  able 
artist  and  fertile  designer.     He  was  the  true   successor  of 


SCULPTURE 


251 


Arnolfo.  We  see  his  hand  in  the  reclining  statue  of  Cardinal 
Pietro  da  Piperno  (f  1302)  in  the  Lateran  basilica,  where  the 
artist  has  mastered  Arnolfo's  later  soft  pastoso  manner. 

Deodato  was  also  a  decorator.  Part  of  a  ciborium,  with 
his  signature  attached,  is  in  the  Lateran  Cloister,  and  the 
superb  but  fragmentary  papal  throne  from  the  old  apse  is  also 
probably  his.  He  did  not, 
however,  follow  Arnolfo's 
lead  in  ajjplying  sculpture  to 
ciboria,  as  we  see  by  his  work 
in  S.  Maria  in  Cosmedin. 

Giovanni  Cosmati.  —  His 
brother,  Giovanni,  was  pro- 
ductive but  not  a  genius.  His 
known  works  are  sepulchral 
monuments  executed  during 
the  decade   just   before   and 


after  1300,  at  the  same  time 

as     Deodato's     work.        He 

signed  the  tombs  of  Cardinal 

Consalvo      (f   1299)     in     S. 

Maria  Maggiore,  of  Cardinal 

de  Surdis  (f  1302)  at  S.  Bal- 

bina  and  of  Bishop  Durand 

(t   1304)    at     S.     Maria    in 

Aracoeli.     Evidently  by  him, 

though  without  signature,  is 

the  tomb  of  Cardinal  Acqua- 

sparta   (f   1302)  also  in  the 

Aracoeli.       The    De    Surdis 

tomb  is  mutilated.     All  the  others  show  the  same  type  of  a 

double  base  surmounted  by  the  reclining  figure,  with  an  angel 

at  head  and  foot  handling  the  hangings  that  encircle  the  figure 

at  back  and  sides.     The  whole  is  surrounded  by  a  tabernacle, 

formed  by  a  trefoil  gable  resting  on  columns  or  pilasters. 

In  these  works  the  design  is  meagre  and  both  less  artistic 
and  less  monumental  than  that  of  the  tombs  of  the  previous 
generation.     The  sculpture  is  rather  stiff  and  lifeless,  and  the 


Tomb  of  Curdiual  d'Acquasparta, 
S.  Maria  in  Aracoeli. 
By  Giovanni  Cosinati. 


252 


CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 


transitions  between  planes  are  rather  sharp  and  awkward 
both  in  drapery  and  flesh.  In  the  monument  of  Cardinal  de 
Surdis  at  S.  Balbina  (1302),  Giovanni  is  at  his  best :  the  face 
is  perfectly  expressive  of  sleep  and  the  body  is  really  resting, 
not  uncomfortably  perched  sideways.  If  the  statue  of  Bishop 
Durand  at  S.  Maria  sopra  Minerva  were  restored  to  its  proper 
position  by  the  removal  of  the  stone  blocks  under  its  head,  it 
would  probably  have  a  similar  restful  effect.  Both  give  the 
impression  of  good  portraits,  though  the  handling  is  lacking 


Figure  from  De  Surdis  Tomb  at  S.  Balbina. 
By  Giovanni  Cosmati. 


in  suppleness.  The  angels  holding  up  the  ends  of  the  drapery 
that  surrounds  the  cenotaph  are  graceful  and  quite  a  contrast 
to  the  restless  angels  of  the  De  Braye  tomb. 

Of  almost  precisely  the  same  design  is  the  unsigned  monu- 
ment of  Cardinal  Acquasparta,  and  yet  the  figure,  tipped  for- 
ward according  to  the  older  type  of  the  Hadrian  V  statue,  and 
the  greater  realism  of  the  face,  would  suggest  another  hand 
than  Giovanni's  —  that  of  an  older  artist,  were  it  not  for  the 
tomb  of  Cardinal  Consalvo,  the  exact  duplicate  of  Durand's, 
which  Giovanni  executed  and  signed  in  1299,  and  which  leaves 
no  doubt  that  all  these  works  are  by  the  same  hand.     Evi- 


SCULPTURE 


253 


dently  some  influence  was  brought  to  bear  upon  Giovanni 
toward  1301  or  1302  which  gave  greater  naturalness  to  his 
style. 

A  specialty  of  the  Roman  school  were  statuettes,  either 
entirely  in  the  round  or  in  three-quarter  relief.  From  the 
many  destroyed  ciboria  and  tombs  of 
this  period  (c.  1250-1300)  there  were 
saved  a  number  of  such  statuettes 
that  are  hidden  away  in  churches, 
crowning  doorways  or  perched  on 
facades.  They  can  be  seen  at 
S.  Maria  in  Trastevere,  S.  Alessio, 
S.  Saba,  etc. 

A  smaller  class  of  monument  that 
was  built  on  similar  lines  to  the  altar 
ciboria  and  gave  some  scope  to 
the  sculptor  were  the  tabernacles  or 
ciboria  holding  the  Eucharist,  placed 
ordinarily  near  the  apse.  The  most 
graceful  and  well-preserved  is  that 
in  S.  Clemente,  dated  1299,  and 
given  by  Cardinal  Giovanni  Gaetani. 

The  unnatural  ending  of  the  school 
came  with  the  Avignon  exile.  So 
thoroughly  was  it  deplet^ed  that  when, 
toward  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth 
century  and  later,  the  Popes  ordered 
an  occasional  monument  or  ciborium, 
it  was  found  necessary  to  call  sculptors  to  Rome,  especially 
from  Umbria  and  Tuscan/.  Such  works  as  the  ciborium  of 
the  Lateran,  the  tombs  of  Benedict  XII  (f  1342)  and 
Urban  VI  (t  1389),  and  the  monument  of  Cardinal  d'Alenqon 
at  S.  Maria  in  Trastevere,  date  from  this  period  and  illustrate 
the  death  of  the  school. 


Tabernacle  at  S.  Clemente. 


PAINTING 

It  is  neither  practical  nor  logical  to  separate,  as  many 
writers  have  done,  the  two  main  branches  of  Christian  mural 
decoration  —  mosaics  and  wall  paintings.  Much  as  they 
differ  in  technique,  they  stand  together  in  all  matters  impor- 
tant for  the  history  of  mediaeval  painting.  Together  they 
embody  the  mission  of  the  Roman  school  of  art  as  long  as  the 
Christian  Church  had  something  to  teach  the  classes  and  the 
masses  through  the  medium  of  the  eye  as  well  as  the  ear. 
Rome  was  the  centre  and  source  of  the  Western  school  of  pic- 
torial theology ;  as  theological  views  changed,  so  did  artistic 
themes  vary  and  keep  in  touch  with  prevailing  thought.  That 
artists  were  not  free  to  represent  their  personal  fancies  gave 
to  their  works  the  stamp  of  the  leading  minds  of  the  Church 
whose  ideas  they  embodied.  Elsewhere  than  in  Rome  and  its 
immediate  circle  there  were  innumerable  variations,  because  the 
principles  that  governed  were  less  clearly  perceived.  But  in 
Rome  and  her  school  we  may  hope  to  surprise  in  their  purity 
the  pictorial  forms  of  the  mediaeval  West.  The  history  of 
ideas  and  of  themes  must  then  be  studied  simultaneously  with 
that  of  style  and  technique. 

Use  by  the  Church.  —  There  is  hardly  a  single  man  among 
the  great  writers  and  fathers  of  the  Church  who  cannot  be 
appealed  to  if  necessary  to  prove  the  importance  attributed 
to  and  the  close  supervision  exercised  on  painting.  S.  John 
Chrysostom  confessed  the  inferiority  of  language  to  art  in 
urging  the  painters  of  Antioch  to  depict  the  acts  of  the 
martyrs.  S.  Jerome  wrote  of  painting,  that  one  can  under- 
stand far  better  what  is  perceived  by  the  eye  than  by  the  ear. 
The  appeal  to  the  emotions  and  the  understanding  to  which 
these  men  allude  is  along  the  broadest  lines,  though  it  applies 
more  particularly  to  persons  of  the  highest  education  and 
sensibilities.  ^' 

254 


PAIXTIXG 


255 


But  there  were  other  forms  of  appeal  to  other  classes.  The 
first  was  the  combined  effect  of  the  picture  and  of  the  explan- 
atory inscription  usually  placed  under  it,  thus  making  the 
literary  and  pictorial  arts  unite  in  presenting  a  single  idea. 
When  S.  Augustine  delivered  his  famous  sermon  on  S.  Stephen 
in  the  new  chapel  then  consecrated,  he  ended :  "  Why  should 
I  further  enlarge  ?  Kead  the  four  lines  inscribed  on  these 
walls.     They  are    here  in  this  public  place  so  that  all  may 


int.  ii()r  uf  S.  All,;.  I.)  ill  Formis. 
(Showing  arraDgeuient  of  frescos  in  basilica  of  eleventh  century.) 

read;  they  are  few  so  that  they  may  be  memorized  by  all. 
There  is  no  need  of  a  book  on  the  matter :  this  apse  is  your 
book." 

The  explanatory  lines  that  accompanied  paintings  as  a  rule 
made  it  therefore  possible  for  the  great  middle  class  of  mod- 
erately educated  persons  who  could  read  and  write  to  under- 
stand the  scenes  without  help  and  to  explain  them  to  others. 

Descending  farther  in  the  social  and  educational  scale  to  the 
masses  who  could  neither  read  nor  write,  a  proportion  of  the     y 
population  which  increased  tremendously  after  the  sixth  cen-  /- 
tury,   we  find  that  the  Church  considered  painting  as  mak- 
ing an  unparalleled  appeal  to  them.     Even  as  early  as  about 


^ 


^o. 


256  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

400  Bishop  Paulinus  of  Nola,  in  explaining  why  he  depicted 
in  his  churches  the  scenes  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  the 
sufferings  of  the  martyrs  and  the  triumphant  reign  of  Christ, 
says  that  it  was  for  the  instruction  of  the  crowds  of  ignorant 
peasants  and  other  poor  and  illiterate  people  who  congregated 
in  crowds  to  the  churches  on  all  great  feasts  and  holidays  and 
whose  minds  would  thus  be  instructed  and  their  religious  feel- 
ings stimulated.  S.  Gregory,  with  his  usual  happy  terseness, 
says,  "What  writing  is  for  those  who  can  read,  painting  is 
for  the  uneducated  who  can  only  look."  At  the  other  end  of 
the  Middle  Ages  the  continuity  of  the  Catholic  tradition  is 
confirmed  by  the  French  prelate  Durand,  in  the  thirteenth 
century,  who  says,  "  In  churches  we  pay  less  reverence  to 
books  than  to  images  and  pictures ;  pictures  and  ornaments  in 
churches  are  the  teachings  and  scriptures  of  the  laity."  In 
this  way  painting  was  made  to  enforce  its  appeal  on  each  and 
every  class  in  the  community  from  the  most  highly  educated 
to  the  poor  and  illiterate. 

Even  the  Councils  of  the  Church  took  a  hand  in  guiding  the 
development  of  painting.  In  692,  when  the  old  symbolic 
thought,  so  well  exemplified  in  the  art  of  the  Catacombs,  had 
become  thoroughly  obsolete  and  out  of  harmony  with  the  more 
psychological  trend  of  current  theology,  the  Quinisext  Council 
ordered  that  the  old  types  and  figures  and  shadows  under 
which  the  truth  had  been  presented  should  be  superseded  and 
that  Christ  should  henceforth  be  given  by  artists  in  his  human 
form  and  not  in  the  shape  of  the  Lamb.  The  second  Council 
of  Nice  was  held  in  787  largely  to  decide  as  to  the  use  of 
religious  compositions  and  whether  to  stop  the  iconoclastic 
crusade  against  them.  Painters  were  not  held  responsible  for 
what  they  produced,  for  it  says,  "  The  composition  is  not  an 
invention  of  the  painter  but  a  product  of  the  legislation  and 
tradition  of  the  Catholic  Church;  .  .  .  the  art  alone  is  the 
painter's ;  the  choice  and  arrangement  are  of  the  fathers  who 
build  the  churches." 

It  was  the  zealous  defence  of  religious  art  by  the  Koman 
pontiffs  that  at  this  time  turned  the  tide  and  put  an  end  to 
the  war  against  images  which  had  almost  destroyed  religious 


PAINTING  257 

art  in  the  East,  after  the  Emperor  Leo  the  Isaurian  had  in- 
augurated his  anti-artistic  crusade  in  726,  decreeing  the  destruc- 
tion of  images  and  death  or  mutilation  for  artists  who  disobeyed. 
Characteristic  documents  at  this  time  were  Pope  Hadrian's 
message  to  the  Council  through  his  legates,  and  his  letter  to 
Charlemagne  at  the  time  of  the  Council  of  Frankfort  (794) 
in  defence  of  the  acts  of  the  Council.  He  here  reviews  the 
history  of  painting  in  Rome  from  the  time  of  Constantine, 
enumerating  the  principal  extant  works  and  implying  that 
the  Popes  made  themselves  personally  responsible  for  the 
paintings  in  the  churches  of  Rome. 

"  From  their  time  until  the  present,"  he  writes,  "  the 
large  churches  built  by  Popes  Sylvester,  Marc  and  Julius 
have  remained  decorated  with  sacred  subjects  in  mosaic  and 
wall  painting.  The  same  thing  was  done,  at  the  time  of  the 
second  council,  by  S.  Damasus  for  his  own  Church  .  .  . 
which  is  still  full  of  religious  paintings.  .  .  .  Then,  at  the  time 
of  the  third  council,  Pope  Celestin  decorated  his  cemeterial 
basilica  with  paintings.  But  especially  did  his  successor.  Pope 
Sixtus,  when  he  built  the  basilica  of  S.  Maria  Maggiore,  called 
ad  prcesejoe,  decorate  it  with  religious  compositions  both  in 
mosaic  and  in  wall  painting.  ...  At  the  time  of  the  fourth 
council  .  .  .  Pope  Leo  built  several  churches  which  he  decorated 
with  both  mosaics  and  frescos.  Especially  did  he  make,  in 
the  basilica  of  S.  Paul,  and  attach  to  it  his  name  in  verse, 
the  great  arch  with  its  mosaic  representing  our  Saviour 
Jesus  Christ  and  the  twenty-four  elders."  Hadrian  contin- 
ues, enumerating  the  paintings  by  Pope  Vigilius  at  the  Lat- 
eran,  the  very  extensive  series  by  Pelagius  in  the  Church 
of  the  Apostles,  etc. 

The  case  was  really  stated  in  a  nutshell,  centuries  before,  by 
Pope  Sixtus,  when  he  dedicated  his  mosaics  at  S.  Maria  Mag- 
giore to  the  Christian  people  in  the  simple  inscription,  Six- 
tus episcopus  plebi  Dei. 

But  painting  served  these  purposes  not  merely  in  the  old  es- 
tablished communities,  in  which  the  great  majority  had  long 
since  become  Christians :  it  was  also  called  upon  to  do  mission- 
ary work  in  new  lands,  to  assist  in  converting  the  nations 


258  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

that  were  successively  brought  into  the  fold,  —  Lombards,  An- 
glo-Saxons, Germans,  Bulgarians,  Russians.  Eome  furnished 
the  pictorial  scheme,  as  well  as  the  artists  themselves,  in  the 
majority  of  the  historic  constructive  labors  out  of  which  the 
Christian  civilization  of  the  North  was  to  grow.  The  balance 
came  from  Byzantium. 

When  Gregory  the  Great  sent  S.  Augustine  to  evangelize 
England  he  gave  him  model  pictures  —  one  group  of  which  still 
exists.  When  the  second  and  even  greater  evangelizing  effort 
was  made,  over  half  a  century  later,  under  Theodore  of  Tarsus 
and  Benedict  Biscop,  several  more  series  of  pictures  were  sent 
over,  systematically  grouped,  for  the  decoration  of  the  new 
churches. 

We  will  now  study  the  monuments  historically  :  not  without 
hesitation,  because  there  has  hardly  yet  been  time  to  digest 
the  mass  of  interesting  but  fragmentary  wall  paintings  which 
recent  discoveries  force  us  to  assign  to  their  place  in  a  field 
yet  wrapped  in  obscurity  and  not  yet  treated  adequately  by 
any  writer  on  the  history  of  art. 

Catacomb  Frescos.  —  The  Catacombs  contain  quite  a  number 
of  paintings  with  which  the  principal  crypts  were  decorated 
for  centuries  after  they  ceased  to  be  used  for  burial.  The 
Popes,  especially  Damasus,  took  great  care  to  identify  the 
tombs  of  the  principal  martyrs  in  the  Catacombs,  to  mark  them 
with  monumental  inscriptions  and  decorate  the  crypt  in  which 
they  were  with  appropriate  pictures.  Until  the  ninth  century 
the  majority  of  the  Catacombs  were  kept  open  for  occasional 
worship  and  the  visits  of  pilgrims ;  the  basilicas  built  above 
ground,  over  the  graves  of  the  principal  martyrs,  were  the 
centre  of  the  cult.  The  graves  in  the  Catacomb  crypts  were 
kept  in  good  condition,  guarded  and  continually  redecorated 
with  new  wall-paintings.  The  main  stairways  were  kept 
open  for  pilgrims.  Thousands  of  names  scratched  on  the 
walls  and  tombs  attest  the  popularity  of  these  shrines  that 
encircled  Eome  with  an  added  odor  of  sanctity.  The  writ- 
ten itineraries  or  reports  of  several  of  these  pilgrims  have 
been  preserved  and  help  to  identify  many  of  the  monumen.ts. 
Not  until  the  Lombard  and  Saracen  invasions  of  the  ninth 


PAIXTIXG  259 

century  made  it  necessary  to  abandon  all  the  monuments  out- 
side the  walls,  did  the  Popes  cease  to  beautify  these  subter- 
ranean crypts  with  paintings,  to  be,  therefore,  studied  side 
by  side  with  the  frescos  and  mosaics  of  the  basilicas  and 
oratories.  But  the  bulk  of  the  catacomb  frescos  of  the 
second,  third  and  early  fourth  centuries  will  not  be  dis- 
cussed, as  they  represent  the  pre-Constantinian  stage  that  is 
excluded  from  the  scope  of  this  handbook. 

Mosaics.  —  In  one  field,  at  least,  early  Christian  art  can  lay 
a  claim  to  distinct  originality  and  progress  beyond  the  attain- 
ments of  classic  art :  the  field  of  mosaic  painting.  It  would 
seem  as  if  classic  art  had  not  gauged  its  possibilities,  for  the 
decorative  vertical  mosaics  of  fountains  and  lararia,  such  as  we 
see  at  Pompeii,  are  quite  inferior  both  in  technique  and  purely 
ornamental  value  to  the  decorative  wall  mosaics  of  the  early 
Christian  Church.  AVhat  Christian  art  did  at  once,  both  in  the 
East  and  West,  was  to  sublimate  the  art  of  mosaic  work  by 
consecrating  its  almost  imperishable  technique,  its  wealth 
of  deep  and  brilliant  color,  to  the  service  of  the  most  sacred 
themes  on  church  walls.  In  doing  this  it  took  a  step  that 
influenced  the  development  of  religious  art  most  radically  for 
over  a  thousand  years ;  and  one  of  the  greatest  centres  where 
this  can  be  studied  during  the  whole  period  is  Rome.  These 
scenes  are  found  in  every  part  of  the  principal  churches;  on 
the  exterior  walls  of  faqade  and  even  of  apse,  on  the  interior 
surface  of  the  walls  of  apse,  transept,  triumphal  arch,  nave  and 
faqade. 

Some  modern  critics  relegate  mosaic  painting  to  the  domain 
of  the  mechanical  industrial  arts ;  but  they  make  the  mistake 
of  applying  to  an  earlier  period  a  judgment  which  is  correct 
only  for  mosaic  painting  since  the  Renaissance.  It  is  true 
that  for  the  last  four  hundred  years  mosaicists  have  contented 
themselves  with  being  mere  copyists  of  the  great  masters  of 
oil-painting,  tempera  and  wall-painting,  and  that  their  work  has 
been  mechanical.  But  in  the  early  Christian  period  and  the 
better  part  of  the  Middle  Ages  the  actual  execution  of  the 
mosaics  was  the  work,  not  of  artisans,  but  of  the  most  noted 
master  painters.     The  same  men  who  made  the  preliminary 


260  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

sketches  and  cartoons,  squared  off  the  wall  surfaces,  transferred 
the  cartoons  in  outline  to  the  wet  plaster,  and  then,  with  the 
help  of  assistants,  set  in  the  cubes. 

Constantine  and  the  Fourth  Century.  —  The  assets  of  Christian 
painting  in  Kome  in  the  fourth  century,  beginning  with  Con- 
stantine's  time,  are  very  numerous  in  the  field  of  wall-paint- 
ing, while  the  mosaics  are  quite  scarce.  But  such  mosaics  as 
there  are  far  exceed  the  paintings  in  importance  because  they 
were  executed  by  a  higher  class  of  artists,  those  of  the  imperial 
school,  whereas  we  may  consider  the  Catacomb  painters  to  belong 
more  to  the  class  of  artisans,  and  not  usually  to  represent  the 
standards  of  the  new  official  basilical  art,  but  to  be  belated  echoes 
of  the  art  of  preceding  generations  of  simpler  thought.  The 
mosaics  are  those  of  the  mausoleum  of  S.  Costanza,  the  nave 
of  S.  Maria  Maggiore,  the  apses  of  S.  Rufina  and  of  S.  Puden- 
tiana.  Some  of  the  contemporary  Catacomb  wall-paintings 
that  may  be  compared  with  them  are  those  attributable  to 
Pope  Damasus  in  the  Catacombs  of  Domitilla,  S.  Sebastian  and 
S.  Callixtus,  and  the  somewhat  later  works  at  SS.  Marcellinus 
and  Peter,  S.  Domitilla  and  S.  Agnes. 

S.  Costanza.  —  The  mosaics  which  originally  filled  S.  Costanza 
(or  S.  Constantia)  are  typical  of  two  phases :  of  the  passage 
from  decorative  to  didactic  art,  of  the  indefinite  phase  of  art 
and  culture  that  was  non-sectarian,  so  that  it  was  possible  to 
discuss  whether  the  art  were  pagan  or  Christian.  It  was  typi- 
cal of  the  border-land  between  the  poetic  imagery  of  the  Cata- 
combs, the  historic  narrative  of  Bible  scenes,  and  the  didactic 
tendencies  beginning  to  take  shape  in  theological  forms. 

The  principal  part  of  the  ornamentation  was  that  of  the  central 
dome.  It  was  divided  into  twelve  compartments  correspond- 
ing to  the  number  of  arcades  and  columns  below.  The  main 
scheme  for  dividing  and  framing  them  was  by  twelve  pictu- 
resque caryatid  figures  in  mosaic  with  raised  arms,  whose  feet 
rested  on  rocks  rising  from  the  sea  of  the  world  that  flowed 
uninterruptedly  around  the  base,  peopled  with  playful  genii  in 
boats  and  on  shore,  fishing  and  playing  with  swans  and  other 
aquatic  birds.  Above  and  between  the  caryatids  were  framed 
scenes  of  both  Old  and  New  Testament  and  also  of  Allegory, 


PAINTING 


261 


the  selection  being  based  not  on  historic  sequence,  as  was  later 
the  case  in  the  basilical  series,  but  on  symbolism  and  analogy, 
after  the  fashion  of  the  Catacomb  frescos  and  sarcophagi, 
with  even  greater  resources  of  fancy.  All  this,  the  most  sig- 
nificant part  of  the  decoration  of  this  building,  was  destroyed 
centuries  ago,  leaving  only  the  more  purely  decorative  mosaics 
of  the  annular  vault. 

To  any  one  familiar  with  Roman  imperial  pavements,  with 
the  stuccoed  vaults  of  the  tombs  on  the  Via  Latina,  with  their 


Drawing  of  Sixteenth  Century  of  Lost  Mosaics  in  Dome  of  S.  Constantia. 


architectural  compartments,  with  the  frescos  in  the  houses 
and  tombs  of  Rome  and  Pompeii,  with  the  scenes  on  the  Chris- 
tian sarcophagi  and  in  the  Catacombs,  it  will  be  quite  clear 
from  what  mixed  sources  the  mosaicists  of  the  mausoleum  of 
Constantia  derived  their  art.  It  is  a  matter  of  superficial 
decoration,  with  no  attempt  at  pictorial  illusion.  There  was 
more  breadth  and  unity,  of  course,  in  the  destroyed  composi- 
tions of  the  central  vault,  but  in  the  annular  vault  that  forms 
a  continuous  aisle  around  this  central  section,  there  is,  in  per- 
fect preservation,  an  uninterrupted  line  of  the  earliest  Chris- 


262 


CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 


tiaii  mosaics  in  existence,  cut  up  into  a  series  of  eleven  dis- 
connected compositions,  not  only  separately  framed,  but  each 
one  sometimes  subdivided  into  many  sections. 

The  most  interesting  and  the  freest  in  design  is  the  compart- 
ment almost  entirely  filled  with  wandering  grape-vines  that 
spread  from  the  four  corners  toward  the  centre  where  a  charm- 
ing youthful  bust,  almost  a  portrait,  picturesquely  impression- 


Mosaic  Ol'  -\l 


( 'nii>.taiitia. 


istic,  looks  down  from  an  aureole  of  the  grape  —  a  spiritualized 
god  of  the  vine.  For  the  scene  is  the  only  one  to  which  a 
meaning  can  be  attached,  a  scene  with  unity.  Among  the 
vines,  where  birds  are  pecking,  the  naked  genii,  such  as  we  see 
on  the  contemporary  sarcophagus  of  Junius  Bassus  and  many 
others,  are  picking  the  grapes  and  letting  down  the  filled 
baskets.  Along  the  edges  of  the  scene  are  four-wheeled  carts 
drawn  by  two  oxen,  guided  by  a  genius,  carrying  their  load  of 
grapes  from  the  vineyard.     And  then,  under  a  gabled  roof,  sup- 


PAIXTIXG 


263 


ported  by  four  piers,  is  the  great  vat  in  which  three  genii,  with 
much  gesticulation  and  glee,  are  dancing  as  they  tread  the 
must. 

The  charming  freedom  of  the  rambling  vine  carries  one  back 
to  the  fresco  of  the  Catacomb  of  Domitillg,  which  is  attributed 
to  the  second  century,  far  more  than  it  reminds  of  other  works 
of  the  fourth  century.     This  is  quite  paralleled  by  the  resem- 


Mosaic  of  Annular  Vault  at  S.  Constantia. 


blance  of  another  compartment  lo  the  stuccoes  of  the  Augustan 
and  Flavian  periods.  Evidently  the  artist  of  S.  Costanza  was 
a  thorough  eclectifc  and  took  his  motifs  from  any  period  as  well 
as  from  any  art.     He  was  a  good  imitator. 

Even  more  exactly  a  replica  of  the  classic  stucco-work  is 
another  compartment,  in  which  the  ornamental  motifs  are  en- 
closed not  in  rows  of  medallions  of  equal  size,  but  in  a  series  of 
Interlaced  large  medallions  connected  by  smaller  circles  and 
with  concave  hexagons  between  them.  The  larger  medallions 
each  contain  a  figure  —  flying  cupid,  psyche  or  genius  of  some 


264  CLASSIFICATION   OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

sort  —  while  the  hexagons  enclose  an  animal  or  a  bird  and  the 
connecting  circlet  has  a  floral  pattern.  There  is  a  great  deal 
of  animation  and  irregularity  of  design  to  relieve  the  geometric 
patterns.  A  little  farther  in  the  series  this  design  is  almost 
duplicated,  though  no  single  detail  is  the  same,  and  the  greatest 
ingenuity  is  used  in  securing  variations.  In  fact,  there  are 
several  quasi  repetitions  of  this  sort,  and  only  seven  out  of  the 
eleven  compartments  are  of  perfectly  distinct  types. 

There  is  no  solid  background  in  these  mosaics.  The  patterns 
and  figures  are  in  color  against  white,  so  that  the  outlines  are 
clear,  and  everything  seems  detached,  separate,  unreal,  without 
atmosphere.  The  mosaicist  here  is  not  a  painter  :  he  is  not 
even  a  great  decorator,  though  technically  his  art  is  excellent, 
and  every  now  and  then  in  his  side-scenes  of  country  life  and 
his  fantastic  vegetable  and  floral  scrollwork,  he  shows  that 
he  can  unbend  and  cast  aside  the  trammels  of  set  figures. 

S.  Maria  Maggiore :  Nave.  —  Of  quite  another  caliber  are  the 
mosaics  of  S.  Maria  Maggiore.  Here  is  something  of  a  mys- 
tery. Both  walls  of  the  nave  above  the  architrave  have  a  series 
of  oblong  compositions  from  the  Old  Testament.  Around  the 
Triumphal  Arch  is  a  corresponding  series  from  the  New  Testa- 
ment. In  the  apse,  beneath  mediaeval  accretions,  are  remains 
of  a  further  scene.  Now,  this  series  is  certainly  one  of  the 
brightest  stars  in  the  constellation  of  early  Christian  monu- 
ments, for  its  beauty,  its  early  date  and  its  comprehensiveness. 
It  gives  for  the  first  time  some  general  scheme  of  subjects 
selected  by  the  leaders  of  the  Church  and  her  artists  for  the 
teaching  of  the  masses  when  the  somewhat  desultory  symbol- 
ism of  the  Catacombs  had  been  abandoned  for  the  more  system- 
atic methods  of  an  official  Church  in  charge  of  the-  world's 
spiritual  welfare. 

The  question  is  complicated  by  curious  differences  of  opinion 
among  critics.  According  to  Kichter,  all  the  mosaics  belong  to 
the  second  century,  a  revolutionary  theory  which  will  hardly 
find  a  following ;  the  majority  of  critics  assign  them  all  to  the 
time  of  Sixtus  I  in  the  fifth  century  (432-440),  to  whom  the 
dedicatory  inscription  on  the  arch  belongs;  some  of  the  best 
judges  are  inclined  to  see  two  periods  and  styles,  attriVjuting 


PAINT  IX  G  265 

the  mosaics  of  the  triumphal  arch  to  Sixtus  I,  and  those  of  the 
nave  to  the  earlier  date  of  Pope  Liberius  (352-366).  I  feel  in- 
clined to  agree  with  the  latter  critics,  for  reasons  that  affect 
fundamentally  both  the  spirit  and  technique  of  these  mosaics, 
though  the  fact  that  the  inscription  cuts  into  the  feet  of  Peter 
and  Paul  would  connect  it  with  a  restoration  and  give  equality 
but  not  priority  of  date  to  these  arch  mosaics.  Those  of  the 
nave  are  material  in  conception ;  they  are  far  more  originally 
impressionistic  and  Roman  in  their  technique,  as  compared  to 
the  more  clearly  articulated,  more  orientally  poetic  and  ideal- 
ized compositions  above  the  arch.  The  main  difficulty  in  a 
study  of  these  mosaics  has  been  their  distance  from  the 
ground,  their  small  size  and  the  confusion  of  their  compo- 
sition, so  that,  however  we  may  disagree  with  Dr.  Richter, 
his  careful  tracings  and  colored  drawings  have  for  the  first 
time  given  us  a  true  idea  of  the  wonderful,  in  fact,  unique, 
technique  of  the  nave  mosaics.^  They  are  the  only  instances 
of  true  impressionism  in  mosaic  painting.  The  cubes  are  of 
large  size  and  of  varied  shapes ;  they  are  not  set  close  together, 
but  widely  spaced  in  their  bed,  so  that  the  artist  could  turn 
and  twist  them  to  his  taste.  It  is  extraordinary  how  the 
brilliantly  gleaming  eye,  so  characteristic  of  many  of  the 
figures,  is  produced  by  the  juxtaposition  of  just  two  sharply 
contrasting  mosaic  cubes.  Closely  examined,  the  design  seems 
coarse,  rough,  ineffective,  aimless ;  as  one  draws  off  to  a  dis- 
tance, everything  takes  shape  and  springs  startlingly  into  life. 
For  mosaics  such  as  these  the  conventional  long,  squared  sticks, 
chopped  off  into  regular  rectangular  cubes,  were  quite  insuf- 
ficient. For  the  features,  extremities  and  even  draperies,  there 
were  required  irregular  cubes  of  all  shapes  and  sizes,  that  had 
to  be  made  for  their  particular  places.  Such  work  as  this  was 
as  far  removed  as  brush  work  from  anything  mechanical,  and 
required  even  more  artistic  imagination  to  secure  the  right 
effect. 

The  compartments  number  twenty-eight.     Those  on  the  left 
are  episodes  taken  from  the  stories  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  Jacob 

1  We  may  hope  to  know  them  still  better  when  Dr.  Wilpert's  photographs 
and  drawings,  now  being  made,  shall  have  been  published. 


266  CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  MONUMENTS 


PAIXTIXG  267 

and  Esau ;  those  on  the  right  from  those  of  Moses  and  Joshua. 
Undoubtedly  there  were  more  in  the  original  series,  perhaps 
a  second  row.  The  scenes  are  natural  and  full  of  life  and  ani- 
mation. It  has  seemed  to  many  critics  that  there  was  a  strik- 
ing analogy  between  the  battle  scenes  from  the  story  of  Joshua 
and  the  Koman  battle  scenes  in  the  reliefs  of  the  Columns  of 
Trajan  and  Marcus  Aurelius.  The  art  is  still  antique  in  its 
naturalness. 

S.  Pudentiana.  —  Equally  removed  from  the  mechanical  pre- 
cision of  S.  Costanza  and  the  impressionism  and  poetry  of  S. 
Maria  Maggiore  is  the  apsidal  mosaic  of  S.  Pudentiana,  an 
example  of  solid  sincere  brush-work  effect  in  mosaic,  and  of 
plain  unimaginative  Koman  realism.  It  is  the  earliest  and 
most  beautiful  apsidal  mosaic  in  existence,  made  in  the  last 
decade  of  the  fourth  century  by  the  priest  Leopardus  by  order 
of  Pope  Siricius  (384^99). 

Mutilated  as  it  is  both  above  and  below  by  Barocco  vandals, 
the  scene  represents  the  Spiritual  Church,  in  all  its  main  ele- 
ments, in  the  Heavenly  Jerusalem.  Christ,  enthroned,  sur- 
rounded by  the  figures  of  the  twelve  apostles,  seated  in  a 
hemicycle  like  Koman  senators,  forms  the  exact  spiritual  coun- 
terpart of  the  scene  daily  enacted  in  the  lower  part  of  the  apse 
of  the  churches,  where  the  bishop's  throne  and  the  seats  for  the 
presbyters  around  the  hemicycle  were  occupied  in  the  same 
fashion  by  the  officers  of  the  earthly  Church.  The  rest  of  the 
composition,  in  more  abstract  form,  completes  the  idea.  The 
Universal  Church,  in  early  symbolism,  was  formed  of  two  main 
sections :  the  Jewish,  or  Church  of  the  Circumcision,  and  the 
Gentile,  or  Church  of  the  Nations.  They  were  represented  in 
the  form  of  allegorical  female  figures  in  varied  types  that  were 
popular  in  art  even  as  late  as  the  Gothic  period.  Here  we 
see  them,  standing  behind  the  row  of  seated  apostles,  placing 
a  wreath  on  the  head  of  the  two  who  represented  these  two 
elements :  S.  Paul,  apostle  of  the  Gentiles,  and  S.  Peter,  the 
apostle  of  the  Church  of  the  Circumcision.  Above,  in  the 
clouds,  are  the  symbols  of  the  four  great  witnesses,  the  evan- 
gelists, the  earliest  remaining  examples  of  these  emblems:  the 
Angel,  the  Lion,  the  Ox  and  the  Eagle.     They  flank  the  great 


268 


CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 


central  jewelled  cross,  standing  on  the  sacred  mount  from 
which  the  four  rivers  of  paradise  flow.  Between  the  upper 
and  lower  elements  of  this  scene  is  an  elaborate  series  of 
buildings  behind  a  continuous  arched  portico,  which  forms  the 


Figure  of  Christ  in  Apsidal  Mosaic  of  S.  Pudeiitiaiia. 

background  and  gives  the  artist's  idea  of  the  structures  of 
the  Heavenly  Jerusalem  in  which  the  scene  is  laid.  In  the 
sixteenth  century  the  two  end  apostles  were  destroyed,  as  well 
as  the  lower  part  of  all  the  figures  with  whatever  was  belDW 
them. 


PAFNTIXG 


269 


To  supplement  this  mosaic,  there  must  have  been  two  other 
scenes:  a  narrow  band  immediately  below,  in  the  hemicycle  of 
the  apse,  and  a  composition  covering  the  face  of  the  apse  above 
the  hemicycle.  Of  the  first  of  these,  enough  remains,  in  the 
Lamb  of  God  standing  on  a  rock,  to  show  that  here  was  the 
theme  so  frequent  in  later  apses,  of  the  twelve  sheep  on  either 
side  of  the  Lamb. 

To  reconstruct  the  destroyed  scene  on  the  face  of  the  apse, 


Apse  Mosaic  of  S.  Pudentiana  (Apostles  on  left). 

we  can  turn  to  an  even  earlier  replica  of  the  same  scene  (c. 
330-360)  in  a  church  at  Naples,  described  by  its  early  church 
chronicler,  where,  beside  the  twelve  seated  apostles  were  the 
four  greater  prophets  :  Tsaiah,  with  an  olive  crown,  Jeremiah, 
Daniel  and  Ezekiel.  At  S.  Pudentiana  the  prophets  doubtless 
occupied  the  spandrels  of  the  arch. 

To  restore  the  aspect  of  even  the  main  scene  of  the  seated 
convention  of  apostles  we  must  turn  to  a  Catacomb  fresco,  to 
the  mosaic  of  S.  Aquilino  in  Milan,  and  to  some  sarcophagi  of 


270  CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  MONUMENTS 

about  the  same  age,  for  later  art  and  most  contemporary  monu« 
ments  give  the  apostles  as  standing.  Even  so,  one  must  be- 
ware of  the  enormous  percentage  of  restoration,  particularly  on 
the  right  side,  where  the  heads  of  all  the  apostles,  except  of 
Peter,  seem  to  be  largely  Barocco  restorations,  especially  those 
in  the  extreme  right  and  left.  Above,  the  angel  of  S.  Matthew, 
on  the  left,  is  a  Barocco  creation,  and  the  right  lower  side  of 
the  head  of  Christ  is  badly  deformed. 

Yet,  for  all  these  mutilations,  there  breathes  from  this 
mosaic  a  unique  air  of  power  and  beauty.  The  realism  of  the 
heavy  Roman  types  is  redeemed  by  the  spirituality  of  the 
Christ,  and  is  lighted  up  by  the  glint  of  the  sunlit  gold  on  his 
throne  and  his  garments,  in  those  of  the  two  Allegories  of  the 
Church,  and  in  the  buildings  of  the  Heavenly  Jerusalem, 
whose  roofs  and  window  traceries  gleam  brilliantly,  while 
above  them  the  clouds  with  their  golden  lining  almost  hide  the 
blue  sky. 

The  technical  characteristics  of  this  mosaic  that  make  it 
preeminent  in  its  class,  are  particularly  the  realistic  solidity  of 
the  figures,  with  their  deeply  lined  drapery,  their  varied  and 
lifelike  attitudes,  their  portrait-like  heads.  The  eye  sinks 
into  the  picture;  it  has  perspective,  has  different  planes.  The 
artist  makes  of  his  figures  more  than  -abstract  types  for  pur- 
poses of  religious  instruction :  he  gives  them  the  real  life  that 
was  characteristic  of  the  simple  art  of  the  Catacombs  and 
which  was  to  disappear  very  soon  from  art  under  the  influence 
of  more  abstract  theoretical  thought. 

Something  of  the  breadth  and  strength  in  the  heads  also  can 
be  understood  from  the  almost  contemporary  heads  of  apostles 
in  the  baptistery  of  the  cathedral  at  Ravenna. 

Lateran  Baptistery.  —  At  about  the  same  time  the  apsidal 
ends  of  the  porch  of  the  Lateran  baptistery  received  their 
mosaic  decoration.  That  on  the  right,  dedicated  to  SS.  Rufina  e 
Seconda,  has  preserved  the  mosaic,  and  while  it  may  at  first 
sight  appear  merely  decorative,  it  is  a  straight  piece  of  symbol- 
ism suited  to  the  place  where  the  chrism  of  confirmation  was 
administered  after  baptism  —  the  promise  of  the  new  life  <5f 
the  Vine.     The  entire  field  is  occupied  by  rich  volutes  spring- 


PAINTING  271 

ing  from  a  common  centre.  The  fan-shaped  crown  contains 
the  Lamb  (Christ)  and  four  doves  (the  evangelists)  under 
arches  and  between  flowers.  Beneath  the  vine  is  the  world  of 
sea  and  shore,  as  at  S.  Costanza,  with  its  sportive  scenes. 
Further  symbolism  in  the  border  includes  twelve  crosses 
(Apostles)  and  doves  at  vases  (water  of  life). 

Here,  as  at  S.  Costanza,  is  the  Catacomb  art  spiritualized. 
Technically,  the  work  is  superb,  though  it  is  badly  restored. 
The  destroyed  companion  scene  in  the  opposite  hemicycle 
represented  the  shepherding  of  the  sheep  of  the  Church. 

S.  Maria  Maggiore :  Arch  and  Apse.  —  The  next  work  is  the 
triumphal  arch  at  S.  Maria  Maggiore,  as  well  as  the  original 
apsidal  mosaic.  From  a  description  of  c.  1100  a.d.  the  compo- 
sition in  the  apse  must  have  been  almost  the  counterpart  of 
S.  Rufina  with  more  details :  a  vine  with  a  sea  scene  below, 
with  birds  and  animals  and  fishes.  But  on  the  triumphal  arch 
we  see  the  advent  of  a  new  art  and  thought  derived  from  the 
Hellenic  Orient. 

How  explain  the  effect,  as  of  soft  and  mellow  Persian  carpets, 
in  the  decorative  framework  under  the  triumphal  arch  ?  Only 
a  colorist  from  the  East  could  have  done  it  for  Pope  Sixtus. 
How  explain  the  poetic  use  of  oriental  apocryphal  legends  in 
these  same  mosaics  by  any  artist  schooled  in  the  simple  sym- 
bolism and  historic  parallels  of  the  Roman  school  ? 

Critics  disagree  as  to  whether  any  part  of  the  present  apsi- 
dal mosaic  can  be  dated  in  its  actual  workmanship  to  the  time 
of  Liberius  or  Sixtus.  I  believe  that  all  the  volutes  of  the 
vine,  except  where  they  are  twisted,  in  the  lower  part,  away 
from  their  original  lines  to  admit  of  the  inserted  mediaeval 
figures,  are  actually  part  of  the  original  mosaic.  The  plastic 
beauty  and  depth  of  color,  the  skilful  interweaving  of  the 
birds,  are  indications  of  early  date.  Of  the  water  scene  below, 
part  seems  original,  part  mediaeval  reproduction  in  which  the 
playful,  graceful  air  of  the  scene  has  not  been  lost. 

The  mosaic  on  the  face  of  the  triumphal  arch  has  preserved 
its  original  character  far  better  than  those  of  apse  or  nave. 
Its  scenes  are  of  the  New  Testament,  partly  symbolic,  partly 
historic.     In  the  centre,  in  a  band  above  the  summit  of  the 


272  CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  MONUMENTS 

arch,  is  an  apocalyptic  scene,  the  Adoration  of  the  Throne. 
The  throne  is  cushioned  and  jewelled,  surmounted  by  a  cross 
and  surrounded  by  a  double  glory.  Under  it  is  the  dedica- 
tory inscription  of  Pope  Sixtus  —  Xystus  Episcopus  Plehi  Dei. 
On  either  side,  hovering  in  the  air,  are  the  four  Beasts  or 
symbols  of  the  Evangelists ;  and  between  and  below  them  two 
figures  holding  books,  two  prophets  or  "  witnesses,"  usually 
called  erroneously  SS.  Peter  and  Paul.  Connected  theoreti- 
cally with  this  composition,  though  separated  materially  by  all 
the  evangelical  subjects,  are  the  scenes  at  the  very  bottom  of 
the  arch  on  each  side,  representing  the  sacred  cities  of  Jeru- 
salem and  Bethlehem,  and  below  them  the  twelve  sheep  or 
apostles  in  two  picturesque  groups. 

There  are  three  tiers  of  scenes  between  these  groups  just 
described,  interrupted  by  the  curve  of  the  arch.  They  relate 
to  the  Birth  of  Christ,  and  are  more  closely  related  to  early 
apocryphal  legends  of  the  Infancy  of  Christ  than  any  other 
known  works  of  art.  I.  (a)  Annunciation;  (6)  Message  to 
Joseph ;  (c)  Presentation  in  the  Temple ;  (d)  Flight  into 
Egypt  (?).  II.  (a)  Adoration  of  the  Magi ;  {h)  Triumphal 
Reception  in  Egypt.  III.  (a)  Murder  of  the  Innocents ; 
(It)  The  Magi  before  Herod.  In  these  scenes  the  presence  of 
many  angels  as  attendants  is  a  Hellenic  trait.  In  this  unique 
way  of  treating  the  Annunciation,  the  Virgin  is  enthroned  be- 
tween angels,  while  Gabriel  hovers  above.  The  scene  of  the 
angel  bringing  the  message  to  Joseph  is  also  unusual.  The 
Adoration  of  the  Magi  is  lifted  above  the  commonplace  by  the 
fact  that  the  Child  is  not  held,  but  sits  alone  on  an  immense 
throne  behind  which  four  angels  stand,  while  on  either  side 
are  seated  the  attendant  symbolic  figures  of  the  two  Churches, 
—  of  the  Circumcision  and  the  Gentiles.  The  next  scene  is 
supposed  to  be  from  one  of  the  apocryphal  narratives  of  the 
Infancy  of  Christ  (pseudo-Matthew)  and  to  represent  one  of 
the  kinglets  of  Egypt  issuing  forth  to  do  homage  to  the  Child. 
The  art  of  these  mosaics  seems  to  vary  from  those  of  the  nave 
in  the  richer  tonality  of  the  coloring,  in  a  lesser  amount  of  im- 
pressionistic handling,  and  a  greater  precision  in  the  composi- 
tion ;  though  these  differences  must  not  be  unduly  emphasized. 


PAIXTIXG 


273 


S.  Sabina.  —  Not  many  years  after,  the  church  of  S.  Sabina 
received  a  superb  mosaic  decoration,  of  which  the  little  that 
remains  is  quite  closely  connected  with  part  of  the  scene  at 
S.  Pudentiana,  as  it  consists  of  the  two  allegorical  figures  we 


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The  Church  of  the  Circumcision,  Mosaic  at  S.  Sabiua. 
(Early  fifth  century.) 


have  already  seen  there  and  at  S.  Maria  Maggiore,  which  are 
clearly  identified  at  S.  Sabina  by  inscriptions  as  Ecdesia  ex 
Circumcisione  and  Ecdesia  ex  Gentihus.  As  at  S.  Pudentiana, 
these  figures  are  each  associated  with  a  prince  of  the  apostles, 

T 


274  CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  MONUMENTS 

S.  Peter  being  placed  above  the  one,  S.  Paul  above  the  other. 
If  we  compare  the  same  figures  in  the  two  mosaics,  it  would 
appear  as  if  a  quarter  of  a  century  had  led  to  some  decrease 
of  realistic  ability.  The  female  figures  at  S.  Sabina  still  have 
the  grave  and  stately  matronly  type ;  but  their  coloring  is  not 
only  deeper,  but  more  monotonous,  unrelieved  by  high  lights, 
and  the  effect  is  flatter  and  less  rounded.  This  scene  was 
placed  on  the  inside  wall  of  the  facade  of  the  church  and  was 
completed  above  by  the  Christ  and  the  symbols  of  the  four 
evangelists.  Originally  it  was  a  small  part  of  a  general  mosaic 
ornamentation  that  covered  the  apse,  the  triumphal  arch,  and 
perhaps  the  walls  of  the  nave,  as  at  S.  Maria  Maggiore. 

S.  Paul.  —  The  original  mosaic  of  the  triumphal  arch  at 
S.  Paul  followed  closely  after  S.  Sabina.  It  was  famous  in 
Church  annals,  being  praised  by  Pope  Hadrian  in  his  letter 
to  Charlemagne.  In  the  centre  is  the  half-figure  of  Christ  in 
a  luminous  circle,  like  a  rainbow,  and  with  a  nimbus  radiat- 
ing long  rays  of  light,  according  to  the  description  in  Reve- 
lation. Above,  on  either  side,  are  the  four  symbols  of  the 
Evangelists,  the  Beasts  of  Revelation.  Near  the  lower 
part  of  Christ's  aureole  are  two  angels.  Farther  off,  on  both 
sides,  are  the  twenty-four  Elders.  In  the  lower  part  of  the 
pendentives  are  the  figures  of  the  princes  of  the  apostles :  Paul 
on  the  right,  Peter  on  the  left.  This  mosaic  is  entirely  modern 
and  is  valuable  merely  as  preserving  the  design  of  the  original, 
badly  damaged  in  the  fire  of  1823.  The  mistake  of  regarding 
it  as  genuine  is  common  in  handbooks  of  art  history.  The 
hard,  flat,  severe  head  of  Christ  on  the  arch  at  S.  Paul  is 
often  used  as  giving  the  type  of  the  fifth-century  Christ  — 
which  is  distinctly  a  libel  on  the  century  and  as  far  as  pos- 
sible from  the  truth.  The  Christ  of  the  fifth  and  sixth  cen- 
turies is  far  from  ascetic :  works  that  retain  the  actual  handiwork 
of  the  time  show  softness,  morbidezza  of  handling,  mildness  of 
expression ;  the  type,  in  fact,  of  the  so-called  Veronica  head. 

Lateran  Baptistery.  —  The  continuation  of  the  symbolic  semi- 
decorative  style  even  after  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century  is 
illustrated  by  the  little  mosaic  in  the  chapel  of  S.  John  >he 
Evangelist  added  to  the  Lateran  Baptistery  by  Pope  Hilary. 


PAINTING  275 

This  groin  vault  has  a  very  schematic  decoration  on  a  gold 
ground.  The  centre  is  occupied  by  the  Lamb  within  a  rich 
wreath  of  flowers,  which  is  itself  enclosed  in  an  ornamental 
square  frame.     From  the  corners  and   centres  of   this  radiate 


Figure  of  Christ  in  Apsidal  Mosaic  of  SS.  Cosma  e  Damiano. 

frame-like  ornamental  bands  and  triple  candelabra  forming 
eight  compartments  and  intersected  by  four  large  garlands  of 
flowers  festooned  from  the  central  frame ;  the  flowers  represent 
the  four  seasons. 

In  each  of  the  eight  compartments  is  a  similar  group  of  a 


276 


CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  MONUMENTS 


central  vase  full  of  fruit  and  on  either  side  a  bird  pointed  toward 
it.  Each  of  the  four  sections  of  the  vault  has  a  particular  kind 
of  bird  —  of  which  there  are  four.  They  are  :  ducks,,  partridges, 
doves,  parrots.  These  birds  are  supposed  to  symbolize  the 
four  elements  :  water,  earth,  air  and  fire.  Some  decoration  re- 
mains in  two  lunettes. 

Had  the  two  apsidal  mosaics  of  S.  Andrea  in  Catabarbara  (c. 
471)  and  S.  Agata  in  Suburra  (c.  461)  been  preserved  we  should 


Painted  Decoration  of  House  of  John  and  Paul  (SS.  Giovanni  e  Paolo). 

undoubtedly  have  found  in  them  the  connecting  links  between  S. 
Pudentiana  and  SS.  Cosma  e  Damiano  —  strong-featured,  heav- 
ily modelled,  realistic  apostles,  richly  shadowed  in  flesh  and 
drapery.  The  names  were  attached  to  each  apostle  at  S.  Agata 
and  with  their  loss  we  have  missed  the  chance  of  seeing  what 
the  earlier  Western  tradition  held  to  be  the  type  of  each  one. 

SS.  Cosma  e  Damiano.  —  It  was  under  Felix  IV  (526-530)  that 
the  apse  of  SS.  Cosma  e  Damiano  received  its  mosaic  (ilL*on 
p.  73).     The  theme  is  that  of  the  typical  apsidal  mosaic  of  the 


PAINTING 


277 


Roman  school :  on  the  face  of  the  apse  the  apocalyptic  scene  of 
the  Lamb,  the  Angels  and  the  twenty-four  Elders  and,  in  the 
semi-dome,  Christ,  Peter,  and  Paul,  Cosmas  and  Damian,  Theo- 
dore and  Pope  Felix ;  while  below  are  the  Lamb  and  the  twelve 
sheep.  Compared  with  earlier  treatments  of  the  same  scene, 
such  as  S.  Pu- 
dentiana,  there 
is  here  an  elimi- 
nation of  all  ac- 
cessories, such  as 
the  buildings  of 
the  Heavenly 
Jerusalem.  This 
step  had  already 
been  taken  in 
the  fifth  century. 
But,  further,  the 
figure  of  Christ 
does  not  stand  on 
the  solid  level  on 
which  the  saints 
are  placed,  but  in 
the  midst  of 
clouds  on  a  higher 
plane.  Here  and 
h\  the  angels 
above  we  trace  the 
Orient,  but  in  the 
heavy  types  of 
the  heads  rather 

a  modification  of  antique  Roman  by  the  Gothic  art  of  Ravenna. 
The  substitution  here  of  the  statuesque  for  the  early  pictorial 
type  has  been  noticed  by  keen  critics  as  an  important  innova- 
tion, and  this  mosaic  has  also  the  glory  of  being  the  prototype 
of  subsequent  Roman  compositions  for  over  five  centuries. 

Frescos :  House  of  John  and  Paul.  —  The  frescos  that  belong 
to  the  same  century  and  a  half  as  all  these  mosaics  throw  an 
interesting  side-light. 


Oi  ante,  Fresco  in  House  of  John  and  Paul. 


r 


278  CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  MONUMENTS 

The  series  may  be  opened  with  the  most  remarkable  frescos 
outside  of  the  Catacombs,  those  in  the  house  of  John  and  Paul 
on  the  Coelian,  turned  into  a  church  by  Pammachius  in  c.  400. 
Several  rooms,  preserved  below  the  present  church,  have  a 
decoration  sometimes  religious  in  character,  sometimes  purely 
decorative.  The  most  beautiful  is  a  series  of  wreath-carrying 
figures  encircling  one  room,  so  beautiful  as  to  make  an  earlier 
date  probable.  In  another  room  the  orante  is  more  highly 
finished  and  lifelike  than  any  in  the  Catacombs.  But  most  re- 
markable if  not  as  beautiful  is  the  scene  of  martyrdom  in  the 
chapel  improvised  in  the  very  room  of  the  house  where  the 
saints  were  killed  —  John,  Paul  and  their  friend  Gorgonius. 
We  see  one  of  them  on  his  knees,  his  eyes  bandaged,  while  the 
executioner  stands  back  to  swing  the  sword  to  his  neck.  The 
other  martyrs  stand  waiting  in  the  background.  It  is  a  unique 
scene,  painted  shortly  after  the  event. 

S.  Felicitas,  etc.  —  To  the  fifth  century  belongs  theapsidal  fresco 
of  the  chapel  of  S.  Felicitas,  with  this  martyr  in  large  size  sur- 
rounded by  her  sons.  It  is  illustrated  on  p.  56.  It  helps  to 
bridge  the  distance  between  the  easy  familiar  art  of  the  cata- 
combs and  that  of  the  basilicas.  The  composition  of  Christ 
surrounded  by  saints  and  the  two  apostles  is  repeated  in  the 
catacombs :  twice,  for  instance,  in  the  cemetery  of  S.  Maria 
della  Stella  at  Albano,  in  the  pure  Roman  style  of  the  fifth 
century.  The  three  broadly  treated  saints  (Policamus,  Sebas- 
tian, Quirinus)  in  the  cubiculum  of  S.  Cecilia  at  S.  Callixtus, 
in  graceful  tunic  and  pallium,  are  about  contemporary  with 
Sixtus  III  (432-440). 

Perhaps  even  earlier  and  decidedly  more  interesting  is  a  com- 
position in  the  main  crypt  of  the  cemetery  of  SS.  Peter  and 
Marcellinus.  It  is  a  fresco  with  large  figures  in  two  tiers.  In 
the  upper  and  larger  tier  is  Christ  enthroned;  on  his  right 
S.  Paul  and  on  his  left  S.  Peter,  neither  with  any  emblem  or 
nimbus.  In  the  lower  tier  the  Lamb  is  in  the  centre  with  cru- 
ciform nimbus,  the  Constantinian  monogram  and  A-O,  on  the 
mount  from  which  flow  the  four  rivers.  Two  saints  on  either 
side  are  acclaiming  the  Lamb  with  raised  arm  as  they  approach. 
They  are  inscribed  ;  on  the  right  Petrus  and  Gorgonius  and  on 


PAINTING  279 

the  left  Marcellinus  and  Tiburtius.  These  saints  were  buried 
in  the  erypt. 

Papal  Portraits.  —  A  decided  novelty,  however,  is  the  series 
of  portraits  of  the  popes  in  medallions,  which  were  originally 
placed  in  a  row  above  the  arcades  of  the  nave  at  S.  Paul. 
These  portraits  were  added  to  at  different  periods.  The  first 
series  seems  to  have  been  painted  either  in  the  time  of 
Pope  Leo  the  Great  (440-465)  or  in  the  time  of  the  Antipope 
Laurentius  (501-505).  Those  that  were  saved  from  the  fire  of 
1823  were  detached  and  can  be  studied  in  the  gallery.  About 
fifteen  years  ago  I  had  a  series  of  photographs  made.  The 
earlier  heads,  while  in  no  sense  exact  portraits,  are  excel- 
lent examples  of  the  treatment  of  artists  of  the  fifth  century, 
with  broad  effects  of  light  and  shade,  easy  transitions  in  planes, 
and  without  the  heaviness  that  soon  appears  at  SS.  Cosma  e 
Damiano.  The  latter  have  the  ascetic  type  and  linear  tech- 
nique of  the  eighth  century. 

Commodilla.  —  The  principal  painting  among  those  recently 
discovered  at  the  Catacombs  of  Commodilla  confirms,  by  its 
style,  the  attribution  to  John  I  (523-526)  which  may  be  in- 
ferred from  the  text  of  the  Liher  Pontijiccdis,  for  it  stands  mid- 
way between  the  mosaics  of  the  time  of  Theodoric  and  those  of 
Justinian  at  Ravenna.  Christ,  youthful  and  beardless,  is  seated 
on  a  globe,  the  exact  counterpart  in  type  and  position  of  the 
Christ  in  the  apse  of  S.  Vitale  at  Ravenna  (c.  530-540).  On 
the  right  is  S.  Peter,  on  the  left  S.  Paul,  and  beyond,  on  either 
side,  the  martyrs  to  whom  the  chapel  is  dedicated,  SS.  Felix  and 
Adauctus.  These  four  figures  do  not  stand  facing  the  audience, 
but  are  looking  toward  Christ  and  moving  toward  him  with 
that  bending  rush  so  characteristic  of  the  Magi  approaching  the 
Infant  Christ  in  S.  Apollinare  Xuovo  at  Ravenna  (c.  540).  Fram- 
ing the  scene  at  either  end,  but  not  strictly  part  of  it,  are  two 
other  saints,  Emerita,  who  was  also  buried  here  and  shared  the 
local  honors  with  Felix  and  Adauctus,  and  Stephen.  These 
two  figures  are  immobile  and  face  the  spectator  ;  yet  they  are 
not  lifeless,  ascetic  and  attenuated  as  such  figures  became  in 
the  following  seventh  century,  but  stand  in  graceful  dignity,  like 
youthful  oranti,  or  like  Theodoric's  prophets  between  the  win- 


280 


CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  MONUMENTS 


dows  at  S.  Apol- 
linare,  or  some  of 
the  figures  in  the 
galleries  at  S.  Vitale. 
In  every  fibre  they 
breathe  the  air  of 
Ravenna  in  its  most 
Hellenic  proto-By- 
zantinism. 

Other  paintings  in 
the  same  crypt  are 
in  the  same  style, 
but  may  be  later, 
especially  the  single 
figure  of  S.  Luke, 
which  seems  to  be 
dated  in  the  seventh 
century  by  the  in- 
scription suh  tem- 
pora  Constantini 
Angusti  nostri,  prob- 
ably  Constant!  ne 
Pogonatus. 

Another  large 
painting  in  this 
crypt  is  a  votive 
picture  over  the 
tomb  of  a  lady 
named  "Turtura." 
Here  the  Virgin  and 
Child  are  enthroned 
in  the  centre,  with 
the  young  Felix  on 
the  right  and  the  old 
bearded  A  dauctus  on 
the  left,  who  is  pre- 
senting the  woman 
in  rich  dark  robes 


PAIXTIXG  281 

whose  tomb  was  below.  In  all  these  works  the  technique  is 
quite  distinct  from  the  thin  sketchy  work  of  the  catacomb 
frescos  heretofore.  The  rich  solidity  of  the  coloring  shows 
the  reaction  of  mosaics  on  fresco  painting.  It  is  not  a 
development,  however,  of  the  Roman  school.  Technique, 
style,  composition  —  all  are  an  importation  from  Ravenna. 

The  Gothic  wars  now  come  to  interrupt  the  course  of  ar- 
tistic events,  and  the  rest  of  the  sixth  century  is  comparatively 
barren,  unless  we  place  here  the  earliest  frescos  at  S.  Maria 
Antiqua  and  S.  Saba.  But  while  Rome  suffered  almost  com- 
plete artistic  eclipse,  Ravenna  continued  to  flourish  artistically, 
so  that  it  is  not  surprising  to  find  that  the  next  products  of  the 
art  in  Rome  are  somewhat  ineffective  echoes  of  Ravenna;  in- 
effective, because  the  school  of  Ravenna  was  itself  declining. 

Mosaics  :  S.  Lorenzo  and  S.  Teodoro.  —  Pope  Pelagius  (578- 
590)  placed  a  mosaic  on  the  face  of  the  triumphal  arch 
of  the  older  basilica  of  S.  Lorenzo  (ad  corpus)  when  he 
enlarged  the  Church.  Christ  is  seated  on  the  globe  of  the 
world,  blessing  with  his  right  and  holding  the  long  cross  in  his 
left.  On  either  side  are  three  figures,  each  with  his  name  in- 
scribed above  his  head.  On  the  right  of  Christ,  S.  Peter  with 
cross  and  keys  and  S.  Lawrence  with  cross  and  open  book,  pre- 
senting Pope  Pelagius  (who  carries  a  model  of  the  basilica 
ad  corpus).  On  the  left  of  Christ,  S.  Paul  with  two  scrolls, 
S.  Stephen  with  open  book  and  S.  Hippolytus  carrying  his  mar- 
tyr's crown.  Under  two  highly  decorated  windows,  which 
frame  the  composition  at  either  end,  are  the  two  sacred  cities, 
Jerusalem  and  Bethlehem,  in  the  pendentives.'  SS.  Stephen 
and  Hippolytus  were  introduced  because  their  bodies  were 
buried  in  this  church,  as  well  as  that  of  the  titular  saint,  Law- 
rence. Xearly  the  whole  of  the  body  of  Pelagius  is  modern, 
also  unimportant  parts  of  SS.  Lawrence  and  Hippolytus. 

Earmarks  of  the  Byzantine  traditions  of  Ravenna  are  the 
seating  of  Christ  on  the  globe  and  the  placing  of  S.  Peter  on 
the  right  instead  of  the  left  side  of  Christ.  In  the  interesting 
and  necessarily  theological  discussion  as  to  the  meaning  of  the 
position  of  the  apostles,  in  which  Catholic  critics  shoAv  a 
somewhat  natural  susceptibility,  it  appears  not  to  have  been 


282  CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  MONUMENTS 

noticed  that  the  constant  and  invariable  Roman  tradition  from 
the  fourth  to  the  thirteenth  century  places  S.  Peter  on  Christ's 
left  side,  while  the  Byzantine  tradition,  with  equal  persistency, 
places  him  on  Christ's  right  side.  In  several  cases  the  posi- 
tion on  the  right  is  sufficient  to  prove  Byzantine  influence. 

Perhaps  a  little  later  is  the  semi-dome  of  the  little  circular 
church  of  S.  Teodoro,  where  the  presence  of  S.  Paul  on  the 
right  of  Christ  shows  that  Roman  tradition  was  beginning  to 
reassert  itself,  though  the  seating  of  Christ  on  the  globe  is  a 
sign  of  the  imitation  of  Ravenna  models.  The  restoration  of 
it  in  the  fifteenth  century  under  Nicholas  V  vras  so  funda- 
mental as  almost  to  obliterate  the  original  style. 

Increased  Influence  of  Ravenna  and  Constantinople.  —  When 
Pope  Pelagius  and  his  successors  set  about  their  work  of  artis- 
tic restoration  of  the  city,  their  problem  was  extremely  difficult, 
almost  insoluble.  We  have  seen  how  pitifully  they  failed  in 
architecture.  The  situation  was  perhaps  not  so  desperate  in 
the  held  of  painting.  But  certainly  Rome  herself  had  not 
preserved  any  painters  or  mosaicists.  Once  more  we  must 
believe  that  she  turned  to  Ravenna,  where  art  had  continued 
its  uninterrupted  course,  though  beginning  a  decline  that  was 
to  become  a  landslide  in  the  second  part  of  the  seventh  century. 
But  now,  before  the  close  of  the  sixth  century,  mosaic  and 
wall  painting  were  still  cultivated  with  at  least  sufficient  vigor 
to  account  for  the  source  of  the  works  produced  in  Rome.  In 
fact,  no  other  origin  seems  possible,  as  we  must  exclude  a 
direct  influence  from  Constantinople,  and  no  other  city  in 
Italy  then  possessed  an  important  school  of  art.  There  is  one 
possible  exception.  The  great  church  of  the  Apostles,  built 
with  the  aid  of  the  Byzantine  general  Narses  himself,  was 
decorated  with  a  series  of  mosaics  mentioned  by  Pope  Hadrian. 
In  a  work  that  was  a  sort  of  consecration  of  the  Byzantine 
triumph  it  is  possible  that  Constantinople  furnished  the 
artists ;  we  cannot  say.  But  certainly  the  mosaics  at  S. 
Lorenzo  and  S.  Teodoro  cannot  be  attributed  to  artists  from 
the  capital.  They  combine  the  traditions  of  Ravenna  and 
Rome.  To  Ravenna  belongs  the  type  of  Christ  seated  on  the 
globe  of  the  world  instead  of  enthroned  or  standing  in  the 


PAINTING  283 

clouds.  Foreign  to  Roman  tradition  is  the  placing  of  S.  Paul 
on  the  left  instead  of  the  right  of  Christ,  and  the  placing  of  a 
cross  in  the  hands  of  Christ  and  S.  Peter.  While  the  technique 
of  these  works  is  still  excellent,  the  figures  have  no  life  or 
substance ;  they  are  flat  and  expressionless  manikins. 

It  seems  to  have  been  quite  different  in  the  field  of  wall- 
painting.  We  are  forced  to  attribute  to  the  period  shortly 
before  or  after  600  a  number  of  the  recently  discovered 
frescos  at  S.  Maria  Antiqua  and  S.  Saba,  and  to  find  in  them 
the  charm  and  beauty  of  a  masterly  art.  In  fact  with  the 
opening  of  the  seventh  century  the  invasion  of  the  field  of 
fresco  painting  by  Byzantine  art  becomes  most  pronounced. 
So  much  so  that  it  is  not  easy  to  say  whether  the  thread  of 
Roman  tradition  was  not  altogether  broken.  There  has  been 
until  now  an  entire  misconception  of  the  character  of  painting 
during  this  century  because  the  judgment  of  critics  was  based 
on  mosaics,  which  were  then  undeniably  stiff  and  lifeless. 
But,  thanks  to  recent  discoveries,  it  appears  that  the  contem- 
porary painters  possessed  far  greater  suppleness  and  life. 

S.  Agnese  and  S.  Venanzio.  —  But,  to  begin  with  the  better 
known  mosaics.  These  are :  the  semi-domes  of  S.  Agnese  and 
of  S.  Stef  ano  Rotondo ;  the  apse  of  S.  Venanzio ;  the  altar-piece 
at  S.  Pietro  in  Vincoli. 

At  S.  Agnese  only  the  hemicycle  of  the  apse  is  preserved, 
dating  from  Honorius  I  (625-638).  It  contains  but  three 
figures,  standing  stiffly  against  a  gold  ground.  In  the  centre 
S.  Agnes,  in  rich  court  costume,  diadem  and  jewelled  pectoral, 
is  flanked  by  the  figures  of  two  Popes,  one  holding  the  model 
of  the  basilica  (Honorius  I  ?),  the  other,  with  modern  head 
and  holding  a  book  (Sylvester  or  Symmachus).  Though  there 
is  not  much  relief  to  the  figures,  the  stiff  costume  of  S.  Agnes 
has  led  to  a  somewhat  unfair  estimate  of  the  painting  of  this 
period,  and  of  Byzantine  art  in  general. 

Any  rich  and  heavy  costume  that  conceals  the  figure  is  apt 
to  be  called  Byzantine  and  as  proving  the  influence  of  Byzan- 
tine art,  commencing  with  this  S.  Agnes  in  her  apse,  and 
continuing  until  the  revival  of  the  thirteenth  century. 
Nothing  could  be  more  fallacious.     The  courtly  and  ecclesias- 


284 


CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  MONUMENTS 


tical  costumes  since  the  time  of  Constantine  had  taken  on  that 
richness,  whether  in  East  or  West,  and,  later,  the  use  even  of 
specifically  Eastern  styles  does  not  prove  that  Byzantine  art 
was  the  cause,  but  rather  that,  as  we  know  it  to  have  been  a 
fact  in  the  Rome  of  the  seventh  and  eighth  centuries  and  in  the 
Venice  of  the  tenth  and  eleventh  centuries,  Byzantine  costume 


M 

bp^.,:  y:  .^ 

'"     '^:''~  Jsattfx^'e^-^^g^ 

», 

1-'^  1 

'^^ 

1^  M^     ^   r:  T"-^ 

Mosaics  of  Chapel  S.  A'euanzio  (left  side),  Lateran. 

prevailed  among  the  wealthy  and  upper  classes,  and  this  style 
was,  therefore,  not  foreign  but  national  and  naturally  reproduced 
by  native  artists  from  life. 

In  the  same  fashion  that  all  such  heavy  and  bejewelled 
costumes  have  been  foisted  upon  Byzantine  art,  it  has  been 
supposed  that  this  art  had  lost  the  ability  to  use  simple 
classic  draperies.  So  that  when  such  draperies  are  found  in 
the  Roman  frescos  or  elsewhere,  they  are  adduced  as  a  return 
to  early  Christian  models,  as  a  proof  of  the  absence  of  Byzan- 
tine influence.  A  study  of  Byzantine  illuminations  —  w:here 
larger  works  fail  us  —  show  on  the  contrary  that  the  mastery 


PAINTING  285 

of  classic  Greek  and  Eoman  drapery  remained  an  undying 
heritage  in  the  Orient,  even  when  eclipsed  in  the  West.  For 
figures  of  ideal  character,  except  in  the  case  of  warrior  saints 
and  the  like,  for  apostles  and  prophets  and  even  for  the  com- 
mon multitudes  in  many  biblical  scenes,  the  costume  was 
thoroughly  antique.  'This  is  of  incalculable  influence  over  the 
form  of  artistic, expression. 

In  another  mosaic  of  this  time,  that  of  S.  Venanzio,  the 
prevalence  of  figures  of  saints  in  ecclesiastical  costume  gives 
a  general  effect  of  stiffness  that  is  contradicted  by  the  Christ 
and  angels  in  the  upper  part  of  the  composition.  Pope 
John  IV  (640-642)  began  and  Pope  Theodore  (642-649)  com- 
pleted this  decoration  of  S.  Venanzio. 

In  the  upper  part  of  the  semi-dome  a  half-figure  of  Christ 
emerges  from  clouds  and  blesses  in  Greek  fashion.  On  either 
side,  also  half-hidden  in  clouds,  is  an  adoring  angel.  Below, 
representing  the  Church  on  earth,  is  the  Virgin  in  the  centre 
as  orans,  with  arms  raised.  On  her  right,  S.  Paul,  John  the 
Evangelist,  S.  Venantius  and  Pope  John  IV,  founder  of  the 
oratory.  He  carries  the  model ;  all  the  rest  books.  On 
the  left  are  S.  Peter  and  John  the  Baptist  with  the  crosses,  S. 
Domnio  of  Salona  in  Dalmatia  whence  came  the  relics  of  the 
saints  for  which  the  oratory  was  built,  and  finally  Pope 
Theodore,  who  completed  the  decoration  of  the  chapel.  At 
the  base  is  the  dedicatory  inscription  in  two  lines. 

The  decoration  of  the  face  of  the  arch  is  in  two  tiers.  The 
upper  tier  is  broken  by  three  windows  which  interfered,  un- 
doubtedly, with  the  completeness  of  the  theme.  On  either 
side  of  the  central  window  (where  the  Lamb,  the  Cross  or 
the  bust  of  Christ  should  have  been)  are  the  symbols  of  the 
evangelists.  Beyond  the  two  other  windows  are  the  two 
sacred  cities.  The  lower  tier  consists  of  eight  figures  —  four 
in  each  spandrel  representing  the  principal  martyrs  and  saints 
of  Istria  and  Dalmatia  whose  relics  were  brought  here  by  Pope 
John  IV.  They  are,  beginning  on  our  left,  SS.  Paulinianus, 
Telius,  Asterius,  Anastasius,  Maurus,  Septimius,  Antiochianus, 
Gaianus.  The  principal  and  titular  saint,  Venantius,  had 
already  been  represented  in  the  apse  itself.     Each  figure  is 


286  CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  MONUMENTS 

inscribed  above  its  head.  This  is  a  work  not  without  character 
and  life.  The  court  costume  of  some  of  the  saints  gives  some 
relief  from  the  stiffer  ecclesiastical  robes  of  the  bishops  and 
deacons;  and  there  is  some  attempt  at  relief  and  shading, 
especially  in  the  whites.     It  is  the  best  mosaic  of  the  century. 

To  the  same  Pope  Theodore  is  due  a  much  weaker  and 
badly  restored  apsidal  mosaic  at  S.  Stefano  Rotondo.  In  the 
centre  a  jewelled  cross  stands  in  the  garden  of  Paradise.  On 
its  summit  rests  a  medallion  enclosing  the  bust  of  Christ, 
above  which,  within  a  starry  firmament,  is  the  hand  of  the 
Father,  holding  the  wreath.  A  saint  stands  on  either  side, 
identified  by  his  inscribed  name ;  S.  Primus  on  the  right  and 
S.  Felicianus  on  the  left  of  Christ.  The  restorations  are  very 
considerable,  but  not  sufficient  to  undermine  the  general 
character  and  soft  coloring,  which  is  not  nearly  as  abounding  in 
contrasts  of  light  and  shade  as  S.  Venanzio. 

At  S.  Pietro  in  Vincoli  the  single  figure  of  S.  Sebastian 
formed  an  ancient  altar-piece,  probably  erected  in  680  by 
Pope  Agatho  at  the  time  of  the  plague.  The  saint  is  a 
middle-aged,  bearded  man  in  the  military  costume  of  short 
tunic  and  chlamys,  that  prevailed  in  Constantinople  at  this 
time.  The  type  is  the  absolute  opposite  of  the  effeminate 
youth  popularized  by  the  Renaissance. 

With  this  work  the  series  of  seventh-century  mosaics  closes. 

Pope  John  VII.  —  At  the  opening  of  the  eighth  century  only 
a  few  fragments  show  the  style  of  a  precious  series  of  mosaics 
at  the  Vatican  basilica  in  the  chapel  of  the  Virgin  erected  by 
Pope  John  VII.  They  strike  a  new  note ;  new  in  technique, 
in  composition,  in  ideas.  There  is  nothing  like  them  before  or 
after.     They  are  a  stray  visitor  from  the  Orient. 

Though  merely  the  decoration  of  a  chapel  these  mosaics 
formed  an  elaborate  series.  On  the  outside  faqade  were  eight 
scenes  from  the  life  of  S.  Peter,  mostly  from  apocrj^phal 
sources,  beginning  with  his  preaching  in  Jerusalem  and  end- 
ing with  his  martyrdom.  Inside  the  chapel  was  a  series  from 
the  life  of  Christ.  Though  there  are  but  seven  framed  com- 
partments, the  subjects  are  sixteen.  Two,  three  and  even  four 
scenes  are  picturesquely  thrown  together  in  a  manner  that  we 


PAINTING  287 

are  apt  to  associate  only  with  such  Eenaissance  artists  as 
Ghiberti  in  his  bronze  gates  or  Botticelli  in  his  Sistine  fres- 
cos. The  themes  begin  with  the  Annunciation  and  Visita- 
tion and  end  with  the  Crucifixion  and  Descent  into  Limbo. 
On  a  larger  scale,  framed  by  these  scenes  on  both  sides,  is 
the  Virgin  as  orans,  to  whom  the  Pope  is  offering  the  chapel. 

Of  the  apse  mosaic,  where  the  Virgin  and  Child  were  flanked 
by  Peter  and  Paul,  nothing  remains ;  but  the  colossal  Virgin 
as  orans  is  in  S.  Marco  at  Florence,  the  Adoration  of  the 
Magi  (part)  at  S.  Maria  in  Cosmedin,  and  smaller  fragments 
in  the  Vatican  crypts,  the  Lateran  Museum  and  at  Orte. 

The  color  scheme  is  very  light  and  unusual,  with  a  predomi- 
nance of  whites,  yellows  and  greens.  The  effect  is  flat,  coarse 
when  examined  closely,  but  unconventional  and  at  a  distance 
picturesque  and  effective.  The  white  draperies  are  lined  with 
thin  blue  shadows,  the  flesh  has  red  shadows.  It  is  a  return, 
in  another  way,  to  an  impressionism  corresponding  to  that  of 
S.  Maria  Maggiore's  nave.  There  is  a  movement  and  variety 
of  pose  quite  different  from  the  statuesque  front-view  method 
of  the  rest  of  Roman  mosaics ;  profiles  and  three-quarter  views 
are  not  avoided.  The  most  interesting  of  the  themes  is  the 
Crucifixion,  which  here  appears  for  the  first  time  in  an  official 
and  dated  Roman  monument,  though  that  painted  in  the  cata- 
comb of  S.  Valentinus  is  probably  earlier  (642-649). 

Frescos  of  the  Seventh  Century  and  of  John  VII.  —  But  before 
proceeding  further  we  must  review  the  works  of  fresco-paint- 
ing for  the  century  and  a  half  between  the  mosaic  of  Pelagius 
II  at  S.  Lorenzo  (578-590)  and  that  of  John  VII  (705-707)  at 
S.  Peter. 

Aside  from  the  frescos  in  the  Catacomb  of  Commodilla,  al- 
ready described,  there  is  a  fresco  in  that  of  Pontianus,  which 
is  of  about  the  time  of  the  mosaics  of  S.  Venanzio  (c.  625-650), 
and  illustrates  the  greater  suppleness  of  fresco  technique.  In 
a  composition  with  five  figures,  Christ,  as  a  half-figure,  appears 
above  on  the  clouds,  with  cruciform  nimbus.  He  is  crowning, 
with  far-extended  arms,  S.  Abdon  on  his  right  and  S.  Sennen 
on  his  left.  These  noble  Persian  martyrs  wear  their  national 
costume  —  a  hooded  (pileus)  short  mantle  fastened  in  front  over 


288 


CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 


a  short  fringed  tunic  and  anaxarydes  which  leave  the  legs 
entirely  exposed.  Further  on  the  right  is  S.  Milix  in  short 
tunic  and  chlamys  fastened  on  the  right  shoulder.  The 
corresponding  figure  on  the  left  is  S.  Vincent  in  ecclesiastical 
costume.  Both  these  saints  have  their  arms  extended  in  the 
attitude  of  oranti,  while  the  Persian  martyrs  are  pointing 
toward  Christ.     The  site  is  marked  as  Paradise  by  the  flowers. 


Head  from  Apse  of  Lower  Church,  S.  Saba. 
(Sixth  to  seventh  centuries.) 

Of  the  same  period  is  a  scene  in  the  baptistery.  It  is  the 
Baptism  of  Christ,  who  stands  in  the  Jordan  up  to  his  waist. 
His  head  has  the  nimbus,  and  to  it,  through  clouds,  descends 
the  dove  of  the  Holy  Ghost ;  over  the  right  bank  a  ministering 
angel  hovers,  holding  Christ's  garments,  and  in  front  a  stag  is 
drinking.  On  the  left  bank  stands  John  the  Baptist  in  a  scanty 
skin  garment,  carrying  a  crook  and  leaning  forward  to  lay  his 
hand  on  Christ's  head.  There  are  here  also  two  famous  por- 
trait-busts of  Christ.  The  first,  at  the  foot  of  the  main  stair- 
way, with  simple  cruciform  nimbus,  broad  and  oval  face  with 
short  beard  and  low-growing  hair;  the  second,  with  jewelled 
cruciform  nimbus,  heavy  long  hair  and  chin-beard.  The  for- 
mer is  earlier  and  better ;  the  latter  is  debased  and  crude. 


PAINTING 


289 


In  the  cemetery  of  Callixtus  a  figure  of  S.  Cecilia,  as  an  orans, 
with  arms  extended,  painted  in  the  crypt  sacred  to  her,  is  inter- 
esting to  compare  with  the  figure  of  S.  Agnes  in  that  saint's 
basilica,  of  about  the  same  time.     S.  Cecilia  is  in  rich  jewelled 

costume,     embroidered 

with  lines  of  pearls  and 
with  heavy  bracelets, 
her  head  decorated 
with  a  nimbus  and  a 
pearl  frontlet. 

The  finest  fresco  of 
the  time  in  a  Catacomb, 
and  a  good  Byzantine 
work  of  the  early 
seventh  century,  is  one 
in  the  cubiculum  of  the 
four  saints  in  the  ceme- 
tery of  Generosa,  where 
Christ  is  surrounded  by 
four  martyrs  carrying 
their  crowns  and  in 
typical  Byzantine  cos- 
tume, SS.  Simplicius 
and  Viatrix  on  his  right 
and  SS.  Faustinianus 
and  Bufinianus  on  his 
left. 

There  was  certainly 
a  continuous  interac- 
tion between  the  two 
arts  during  this  period. 
The  mosaicists  of  John  VII  borrowed  from  wall-painting  their 
light  tones  and  sketchiness.  In  turn  the  heavy  outlines  which 
they  were  obliged  to  use  in  consequence  in  order  to  accentuate 
their  rather  substanceless  figures,  were  afterward  adopted  by 
the  painters  themselves  when  they  became,  in  the  following 
century,  unable  to  handle  softly  graded  body  colors.  The  later 
works  at  S.  Saba  show  this,  especially  the  group  of  heads  of 


Saint  from  Apse  of  Lower  Church,  S.  Saha. 
(Sixth  to  seventh  centuries.) 


290 


CLASSIFICATION   OF   THE  MONUMENTS 


Oriental  eremites.  At  the  same  time  the  advantage  is  entirely 
with  the  fresco-painter. 

For  a  real  understanding  of  the  possibilities  of  fresco-paint- 
ing at  this  time  we  must  study  those  at  S.  Saba  and  S.  Maria 
Antiqua. 

Frescos  of  S.  Saba.  —  The  primitive  small  single-naved  church 
attached  to  the  Greek  monastery  of  S.  Saba  on  the  Aven- 
tine  has  been  recently  unearthed  in  its  lower  part,  under  the 


ili^HiH^  '-'.r-  /•'!-■:■  ■•-,' 

yy 

Greek  Eremites  in  Fresco  of  Lower  Church,  S.  Saba. 
(Seventh  to  eighth  centuries.) 


larger  basilica  of  the  twelfth  century.  Injured,  probably,  by 
the  fire  of  Kobert  Guiscard,  it  was  demolished  to  within  less 
than  two  metres  of  its  pavement,  this  space  filled  with  dirt  and 
the  new  church  built  on  the  higher  level.  Its  walls  were  en- 
tirely covered  with  frescos.  There  appear  not  to  be  as  many 
successive  strata  as  we  shall  find  at  S.  IVIaria  Antiqua,  though 
all  the  scenes  were  not  painted  at  the  same  time  —  those  in  and 
near  the  apse  being  the  earlier  and  a  second  stratum  being  evi- 
dent in  parts.  The  eighteen  large  figures  of  saints  occupying 
the  lower  part  of  the  circuit  of  the  apse,  after  the  fashion  of.  S. 
Yenanzio,  with  their  purity  and  sureness  of  outline,  and  the 


PAINTING 


291 


early  classic  Byzantinisin  of  their  physiognomy,  seem  by  the 
same  early  hand  as  the  exquisite  head  of  Christ  with  its  softly 
graded  flesh  tints  and  its  round  contours.  The  eyes  are  open 
and  mild,  the  mouth  is  sweet  and  rather  small,  with  full  lips. 
These  are  traits  impossible  much  after  c.  600  in  Italy,  so  that 
we  mus^"-  suppose  an  early  colony  of  Greek  monks  to  have 
decorated  the  church  just  before  or  after  that  date.  Perhaps 
the  group  of  heads  of 
Eastern  monks,  with 
their  ungraded  flat  sur- 
faces and  broad  brush- 
work,  belongs  to  some 
cruder,  more  sketchy  com- 
positions of  the  seventh 
or  early  eighth  century. 
There  are  also  some 
small-sized  scenes  which 
correspond  perfectly  with 
the  frescos  of  John  VJI 
at  S.  Maria  Antiqua  and 
were,  with  these,  the  pro- 
totypes of  later  similar 
scenes  of  the  eighth 
century  in  the  older  S. 
Clemente,  by  the  hand  of 
inferior  native  Roman 
imitators.  This  minia- 
ture series  is  from  the 
life  of  Christ. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  in  the  mind  of  an  unprejudiced  student 
that  these  frescos  are  all  by  Byzantine  artists,  probably  by 
Greek  monks  of  the  monastery  itself,  such  as  the  Martinus 
Monachus  mag(ister),  who  is  represented  on  the  left  wall. 

Frescos  of  S.  Maria  Antiqua.  —  Although  the  church  of  S. 
Maria  Antiqua  in  the  Forum  was  a  far  more  important  building 
than  S.  Saba,  none  of  its  frescos  are  quite  equal  to  the 
earliest  there,  except  a  few  fragments  of  the  two  earliest  strata, 
especially  the  head  of  an  angel,  among  those  that  are  in  adora- 


Head  of  Christ,  S.  Saba. 
(Sixth  to  seventh  centuries.) 


292 


CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 


tion  of  the  enthroned  Virgin  and  Child.  This  three-quarter 
head  is  of  the  same  beautiful  early  Byzantine  type  as  the  fa- 
mous archangel  of  the  British  Museum  diptych  (c.  500),  and 
gives  a  high  idea  of  what  these  first  frescos  at  S.  Maria  Antiqua 
may  have  been. 

When  the  Library  of  the  temple  of  Augustus,  between  the 
Palatine  and  the  Forum,  was  transformed,  toward  the  close  of 


Miracles  of  Christ:    Frescos  in  Lower  Church  of  S.  Saba. 

(Seventh  century.) 


the  sixth  century,  into  a  Christian  church  under  the  name  of 
S.  Maria  Antiqua,  it  received  a  wall  decoration  in  fresco  which 
was  supplemented  and  renewed  at  short  intervals  during  the 
following  two  centuries,  especially  under  Popes  Martin  I 
(649-653),  John  VII  (705-708),  Paul  I  (757-767)  and  Hadrian  I 
(772-793).  As  the  church  was  abandoned  under  Leo  IV  (845- 
850)  none  of  its  frescos  can  be  later. 

There  is  a  general  scheme  of    decoration.     The   left-h^nd 
wall  was  covered  with  scenes  from  the  Old,  the  right  wall 


PAINTING  293 

with  those  of  the  New  Testament.  Both  series  overflow  into 
the  presbytery  and  choir-screen.  This  is  supplemented  by 
others  in  the  two  rooms  on  either  side  of  the  apse,  by  those  in 
the  apse  and  adjacent  presbytery  walls,  and  finally  the  others 
near  the  entrance  to  the  church  in  the  Chapel  of  the  Forty 
Martyrs.  The  history  of  fresco-painting  in  Rome  during  the 
two  centuries,  between  the  age  of  Justinian  and  that  of  Charle- 
magne, is  epitomized  in  this  one  building.  It  represents  official 
Roman  art  because  the  church  was  the  Papal  chapel  and  John 
VII  established  his  residence  in  a  palace  next  to  it,  and  the 
frescos  bear  evidence  of  being  official  attempts  to  glorify  the 
Papacy  and  its  policy. 

The  apse  best  illustrates  the  history  of  this  pictorial  decora- 
tion. When  the  building  was  first  turned  into  a  chapel,  it  was 
not  provided  with  an  apse.  At  this  time  it  received  the  first 
stratum  of  frescos.  To  this  belongs  a  bejewelled  Madonna, 
with  adoring  angels,  of  the  Odegetria  type.  When  the  apse  was 
cut,  this  stratum  was  overlaid  by  another  and  the  same  scene 
was  repeated;  the  head  of  one  of  the. adoring  angels  is  the 
masterpiece  already  referred  to.  As  this  second  stratum  is 
connected  with  Pope  Martin  I  (649-653),  it  may  be  supposed 
that  the  earlier  stratum  is  not  later  than  the  time  of  Gregory 
the  Great,  just  before  or  after  600,  and  may  well  be  even 
earlier.  After  another  half-century  the  church  was  again 
enlarged,  and  Pope  John  VII  (705-708)  superposed  a  third 
series  in  which  the  former  theme  was  concealed  by  a  row 
of  single  figures  of  saints  with  their  names,  among  which  are 
Gregory  Nazianzen  and  Basil.  Christ  flanked  by  tetramorphs 
filled  the  semi-dome.  Other  fragments  of  the  second  stratum 
represent  Church  fathers  with  names  and  inscribed  scrolls. 
The  apostles  are  also  placed  as  busts  in  medallions.  The  entire 
presbytery  was  devoted  to  the  Life  of  Christ  culminating  in  the 
Crucifixion. 

With  each  renovation  the  frescos  appear  to  have  spread 
further  from  the  apse  and  presbytery,  and,  under  John  VII,  to 
have  covered  the  walls  of  the  nave.  With  few  exceptions  all 
the  inscriptions  of  these  three  earlier  strata  are  in  Greek,  and 
this  confirms  the  stylistic  evidence  of  the  paintings  themselves. 


294  CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  MONUMENTS 

The  scheme  of  the  decoration  was  to  place  the  scenes  from  the 
Old  Testament  on  the  left,  as  one  faces  the  apse  ;  the  Kew 
Testament  scene  on  the  right,  not  only  on  the  walls  of  the  nave, 
but  on  the  piers  at  the  entrance  to  the  presbytery.  The  New- 
Testament  scenes  are  less  thoroughly  destroyed.  The  Annun- 
ciation, in  its  repetition  of  the  scene  on  two  strata,  show^s  the 
two  periods  (John  VII  and  Paul  I  ?).  Other  subjects  are 
Judith  with  the  head  of  Holophernes  and  the  Mother  of  the 
Maccabees  with  her  seven  sons,  which  are  extremely  effective. 

The  original  arrangement  appears  almost  perfectly  in  the 
left  side-aisle.  Below  is  a  tasteful  dado  painted  to  imitate  a 
rich  hanging.  Then,  a  line  of  large  figures,  three-quarter  size. 
Here  the  scene  is  Christ  enthroned  with  nine  Greek  saints  and 
Church  fathers  on  his  left  and  eleven  Latin  saints  and  fathers 
on  his  right.  All  the  names  are  in  Greek,  so  this  picture  is 
not  later  than  John  VII.  Above  this  are  two  rows  of  oblong 
compositions  with  Old  Testament  scenes.  The  upper  row  be- 
gan with  the  Creation,  and  ended  with  the  Flood.  The  lower 
row  are  from  the  stories  of  Jacob  and  Joseph.  The  different 
style  and  the  Latin  inscriptions  show  that  these  rows  are  a 
little  later  than  John  VII,  probably  as  late  as  Zachariah  and 
Paul  I.  The  heavier  outlines  and  lack  of  moulded  shadows 
betray  an  artist  inferior  to  the  author  of  the  other  Old  Testa- 
ment scenes  at  the  entrance  to  the  presbytery,  such  as  the 
scene  of  King  Hezechiah  and  Isaiah. 

The  best  preserved  scenes  of  the  New  Testament  are  inside 
the  presbytery.  The  Adoration  of  the  Magi  recalls  the  scene 
at  Ravenna  in  the  mosaic  at  S.  Apollinare  and  the  tomb  of 
the  Exarch  Isaac.  An  unusual  scene  is  the  Carrying  of  the 
Cross  by  Simon  of  Cyrene,  —  a  scene  which  leads  up  to  the 
great  Crucifixion  in  the  centre.  Another  one  is  S.  Anne  en- 
throned, holding  the  Virgin  as  a  child. 

In  studying  these  series  of  Bible  history  on  so  small  a  scale, 
framed  in  their  decorative  patterns,  one  is  reminded  of  the 
theory  that  such  series  originated  in  the  early  illuminated 
Bibles. 

S.  Valentinus.  —  To  confirm  the  date  of  these  frescos  of  S. 
Maria  Antiqua  and  S.  Saba,  and  their  Greek  origin,  come  the 


PAINTING 


295 


frescos  of  a  crypt  in  the  cemetery  of  S.  Valentinus,  which 
have  been  proved  to  belong  to  the  time  of  Pope  Theodore 
(642-648).  The  style  is  crude  in  comparison.  The  ai'tist  is 
not  an  originator,  but  a  native  copyist.  The  series  is  in  four 
parts.  Its  condition  is  almost  too  bad  to  allow  of  criticism. 
Its  importance,  however,  is  increased  by  the  fact  that  its 
Crucifixion  scene  is 
probably  the  earliest 
known . 

In  the  Crucifixion 
Christ  is  robed  in 
the  long  sleeveless 
colobium ;  his  feet 
rest,  side  by  side, 
on  the  mppedaneum. 
His  eyes  are  wide 
open.  Above  his 
nimbed  head  is  the 
title  Jesus.  Rex. 
ludeorum.  On  either 
side  are  the  sun  and 
moon.  Be'low,  on 
the  right,  the  Virgin ; 
on  the  left,  S.  John, 
holding  a  book. 
There  also  are 
single  figures  of  S. 
Lawrence,  and  of 
another  martyr,  per- 
haps S.  Valentinus,  and  a  scene  of  the  Virgin  holding  the 
Child  straight  in  front  in  the  centre,  in  the  position  of  the 
sacred  pictures  of  Constantinople  such  as  the  Odegetria. 
Finally  there  are  three  episodes  in  the  life  of  the  Virgin. 
(a)  The  Visitation;  (b)  the  washing  of  the  Child;  (c)  the 
miraculous  cure  of  the  incredulous  midwife  (apocryphal 
legends).  These  frescos  at  S.  Valentino  presuppose  the 
earliest  at  S.  Saba  and  S.  Maria. 

I  will  add  here  another  example  of  the  Crucifixion,  in  the 


The  Crucifixion,  Fresco  at  S.  Maria  Antiqua. 


296 


CLASSIFICATION   OF   THE  MONUMENTS 


house  of  SS.  John  and  Paul  under  their  church,  of  similar  type 
to  both  the  Crucifixions  just  described. 

Mosaics  and  Frescos  of  the  Eighth  Century.  — To  return, 
now,  to  mosaic-painting,  there  is  a  gap  in  the  continuity  of 
existing  mosaics  in  Rome  between  those  of  the  first  decade 
of  the  eighth  century  and  those  of  c.  800,  when  the  face 
of   the   apse    of   SS.   Nereo   ed    Achilleo   was   done    by   the 


4 

ilk 

Apsidal  Mosaic  of  SS.  Nereo  ed  Achilleo  (c.  800). 


hand  of  Greek  artists  under  Leo  III  (795-816).  The  semi- 
dome  of  the  apse  was  decorated,  of  course,  at  the  same  time, 
but  has  not  survived.  The  composition  consists  of  three 
scenes,  not  at  all  germane  to  the  Roman  tradition,  but  be- 
longing to  Byzantine  art.  In  the  centre  is  the  Transfiguration. 
Christ  in  an  oval  aureole  is  robed  in  pallium  and  white  tunic 
trimmed  with  purple  and  gold.  Outside  the  aureole,  on  the 
mountain,  stand  Moses  and  Elias,  while  below  them  kneel, 
on  the  right  Peter  and  on  the  left  John  and  James,  who  veil 
themselves  from  the  glory.  All  are  in  white.  At  the  right 
end  is  the  Annunciation,  in  which  the  Angel  approaches  the 


PAIXTIXG  297 

seated  Virgin,  who  has  laid  aside  her  spinning.  At  the  left 
end  are  the  Virgin  and  Child  adored  by  an  angel,  in  the  atti- 
tude of  the  famous  miraculous  "  Theotocos  "  (Mother  of  God), 
—  pictures  so  popular  after  the  Council  of  Ephesus. 

The  principal  part  of  the  mosaic,  that  on  the  semidome  of 
the  apse,  was  destroyed  during  the  Renaissance,  but  it  is 
known  to  have  included,  in  the  centre,  a  large  cross  in  front 
of  a  large  pavilion,  while  sheep  are  approaching  on  both 
sides.  This  is  merely  a  symbolic  representation  of  the  same 
theme  —  the  Transfiguration.  Compare  the  Transfiguration  in 
the  apse  of  S.  Apollinare  in  Classe  at  Ravenna. 

The  mosaic  of  the  Mission  of  the  Apostles  and  the  scene 
with  Leo  III  and  Charlemagne  from  the  Lateran  triclinium 
hardly  requires  mention,  as  it  is  merely  a  Renaissance  re- 
production. 

Before  describing  the  mosaics  of  Pope  Paschal  I  and  his 
successors  later  in  the  ninth  century,  the  frescos  painted 
between  c.  710  and  816  must  be  studied. 

The  eighth  century  saw  no  abating  in  the  activity  of  Roman 
painters.  Gregory  III  (731-741)  in  particular,  the  opponent  of 
the  Iconoclasts,  patronized  them,  and  his  letter  on  the  subjects 
painted  in  Roman  churches  shows  his  intelligent  interest. 
Under  Zacharias  the  frescos  of  S.  Maria  Antiqua  were  supple- 
mented by  new  ones  in  the  chapel  of  Quiricus  and  Julitta,  which 
are  in  especially  good  condition.  They  have  recently  been  as- 
cribed in  part  to  an  earlier  date,  and  to  have  been  merely  sup- 
plemented and  restored  by  Zacharias.  The  apsidal  niche  has 
the  best-preserved  early  Crucifixion  scene  in  existence.  The 
figure  of  Christ  occupies  nearly  the  entire  width ;  beneath  the 
arms  of  the  cross  are  the  Virgin  and  S.  John  ;  between  them  and 
Christ  are  Longinus,  piercing  His  side,  and  a  second  soldier  with 
sponge  and  vinegar.  Above  are  the  sun  and  moon.  In  the  back- 
ground is  a  rocky  landscape  on  the  right.  A  peculiarity  is  the 
classification  of  individual  figures  by  their  size,  which  corre- 
sponds to  their  relative  importance.  Here  there  are  three  very 
distinct  categories.  Christ  is  of  the  usual  early  type  with  wide- 
open  eyes,  without  any  trace  of  suffering  or  weakness,  as  He 
seems  to  rest  against  the  Cross,  not  to  hang  from  it.     The 


298  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

long  blue  colobium  covers  Him  entirely  in  soft  fine  folds.  In 
the  figures  of  the  Virgin  and  S.  John  we  see  no  longer  the 
Hellenic  beauty  so  clear  in  the  works  of  the  previous  cen- 
tury; and  the  type  of  the  two  soldiers,  lank  and  awkward,  is 
one  that  will  continue  in  Rome  until  the  eleventh  century  and 
be  repeated  at  S.  Urbano  alia  Caffarella  and  S.  Paul  (Martiro- 
logio  Chapel). 

Underneath  is  a  line  of  figures  centred  around  the  en- 
throned Virgin  and  Child.  SS.  Peter  and  Paul  stand  on  either 
side.  Beyond  them  are  the  persons  to  whom  the  chapel  is 
dedicated,  SS.  Quiricus  and  Julitta,  and  at  the  ends  Pope 
Zacharias  and  the  donor  Theodotus,  uncle  of  Pope  Hadrian. 
They  have  the  square  nimbus,  showing  them  to  have  been 
living.  These  two  heads  were  added  over  those  of  the  original 
donors.  Each  figure  is  inscribed.  A  long  inscription  identifies 
Theodotus :  Theodotus  primicerio  defensorum  et  dispensatore 
sanctcB  Dei  genetricis  semperque  Virginis  Marice  quce  appellatur 
Aiitiqua.  It  is  this  inscription  which  made  the  identification 
of  this  church  certain. 

The  history  of  the  two  titular  martyrs  is  developed  on  the 
side-walls  in  eight  compositions,  which  are  described  in  Latin 
inscriptions  and  are  among  the  most  precious  and  earliest  of 
preserved  lives  of  the  saints.  The  scenes  relate  to  the  trial 
and  martyrdom  of  mother  and  son  in  Tarsus  of  Cilicia.  Of 
peculiar  interest  is  another  scene,  near  the  door,  which  is 
unique  as  giving  the  portrait-figures  of  the  founder  of  the 
chapel,  Theodotus  and  his  two  children.  It  is  true  that  there 
are  different  opinions  as  to  whether  these  portraits  were  not 
later  substitutions  for  earlier  originals. 

It  is  not  certain  that  these  frescos  may  not  be  by  Greek 
hands,  but  the  balance  of  probability  is  that  they  are  by  local 
artists  trained  by  Greeks  in  their  solid  color-system. 

In  the  apse  and  presbytery  of  the  church  the  confusing 
super-position  of  frescos  and  their  scaling  off  in  certain  parts 
more  than  others  make  it  difficult  to  distinguish  always  what 
belongs  to  the  latest  series  —  probably  that  of  Pope  Paul  I 
(757-767).  This  Pope  appears  in  the  apse  worshippings  an 
enthroned  Christ,  who  is  attended  by  six-winged  cherubim. 


PAINTING  299 

I  am  inclined  to  attribute  to  this  series  some  scenes  of  the 
Old  and  New  Testaments  in  and  near  the  presbytery  to  which 
Latin  inscriptions  are  attached.  One  suspects,  from  the  deli- 
cacy and  miniature-like  quality  of  such  scenes  as  the  sickness 
of  King  Hezechiah,  that  there  had  been  a  new  influx  of  Greek 
artists  under  Paul  I,  if  we  do  not  ascribe  them  to  John  VII. 

There  was  a  second  and  probably  earlier  Crucifixion  scene 
on  the  wall  above  the  main  apse,  so  badly  injured  that  only 
the  upper  part  of  the  Christ,  parts  of  adoring  angels  and  of 
S.  John  can  be  distinguished.  It  was  probably  originally  the 
grandest  scene  of  its  kind  in  Rome,  and  more  an  ideal  inter- 
pretation than  the  others.  This  we  gather  from  the  very  long 
Greek  inscriptions  underneath  it  composed  of  quotations  from 
the  Song  of  Solomon  (iii,  2),  Zachariah  (ix,  11 ;  xiv,  6-7),  Amos 
(viii,  9-10),  Jeremiah  (Baruch  iii,  3G)  and  John  (xix,  37).  It  is 
a  glorification  of  the  Crucifixion,  placed  on  this  most  prom- 
inent position ;  and  suggests  a  connection  with  the  Quinisext 
Council  of  696,  which  ordered  Christ  to  be  represented  cruci- 
fied in  human  shape,  not  as  the  Lamb.  This  and  the  Greek 
inscription  relates  this  painting  to  the  series  of  John  VII, 
not  to  the  later  ones. 

Perhaps  here  should  be  mentioned  two  damaged  scenes  in 
the  subterranean  church  of  S.  Martino  ai  Monti  (VII  cent.  ?), 
of  similar  effect  to  others  of  the  type  of  S.  Venanzio.  In  the 
first  Christ  stands  in  the  centre  blessing  in  the  Greek  manner 
and  holding  a  scroll.  S.  Paul  on  right  and  S.  Peter  on  left 
hold  books.  SS.  Processus  and  Martinianus,  one  on  either 
side,  hold  martyrs'  crowns  and  small  crosses.  Each  figure 
had  his  name  inscribed  above  his  head.  In  the  second  scene 
the  Virgin  stands  holding  the  Child,  Four  female  martyrs 
accompany  her,  two  on  each  side,  each  carrying  a  ring  and  a 
martyr's  crown.  They  are  in  embroidered  and  jewelled  robes, 
similar  to  the  S.  Agnes  type  and  only  one  saint,  "  Agnes,''  has 
preserved  her  name. 

It  is  curious  that  the  great  artistic  activity  of  Pope  Ha- 
drian I,  Charlemagne's  contemporary,  should  have  left  so  few 
certain  traces  in  Rome.-  His  care  for  the  Catacombs  and  their 
decoration  resulted   in   an   abundance   of   frescos,  and    some 


300  CLASSIFICATION   OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

scattered  fragments  may  remain.  Such  are  the  four  single 
figures  in  the  crypt  of  S.  Cornelius  at  S.  Callixtus  (Cornelius, 
Cyprian,  Sixtus  II  and  Optatus),  also  attributed  to  his  suc- 
cessor Leo  III. 

There  still  seem  to  have  remained  some  Greek  painters  in 
Rome  in  connection  with  the  Schola .  Greeca  of  S.  Maria  in 
Cosmedin,  for  the  frescos  in  the  church  restored  by  Hadrian 
which  were  recently  uncovered  appear  to  belong  to  this  time 
rather  than  to  the  twelfth  century.  Those  on  the  face  of  the 
apse  represent  a  scene  thoroughly  Byzantine,  the  Trisagion. 
The  colossal  Christ  is  surrounded  by  choirs  of  worshipping, 
singing  angels. 

The  Ninth  Century :  S.  Prassede,  etc.  —  As  an  instance  of 
the  manner  of  the  Eoman  school  of  this  time,  still  following 
the  Byzantine  scheme  but  in  quite  a  different  style,  is  a 
group  of  four  small  scenes  in  the  lower  church  of  S.  Clemente. 
The  first,  a  Crucifixion,  is  a  derivative  of  the  type  of  John 
VII,  but  the  earmarks  of  the  Western,  or  rather  Northern  Car- 
lovingian  energy,  is  shown  in  the  gesticulating  attitude  of  the 
Virgin  and  S.  John.  The  other  scenes  are :  the  Maries  at  the 
tomb;  the  Descent  into  Hades;  and  the  Marriage  at  Cana. 
The  rather  vulgar  and  crude  style  and  the  coarse  outlines  show 
how  the  school  had  lost  ground  since  even  the  days  of  Paul  I. 

The  decadence  in  fresco  is  reflected  in  mosaic.  The  fall 
from  SS.  Nereo  ed  Achilleo,  where  Greek  refinement  was  joined 
to  some  solidity  and  depth  of  color,  to  the  lifelessness  of  the 
mosaics  of  Paschal  I  is  rapid.  It  is  not  so  extreme  at  S.  Pras- 
sede as  in  other  and  slightly  later  works.  In  sheer  bulk  and 
mass  of  color  the  S.  Prassede  mosaics  are  very  impressive,  for 
it  is  the  largest  series  in  Rome  except  that  of  S.  Maria  Mag- 
giore  and  was  entirely  the  work  of  Pope  Paschal  I.  There 
are  two  groups :  those  of  the  semi-dome  and  face  of  the  apse 
and  of  the  triumphal  arch  ;  those  of  the  exterior  and  interior 
of  the  chapel  of  S.  Zeno. 

On  the  face  of  the  apse,  within  a  circle  in  the  centre,  is  a 
Lamb  on  a  cushioned  throne  with  the  cross  rising  behind  and 
the  seven-sealed  book  (scroll)  on  a  stand  below.  On  either  side 
are  the  seven  candlesticks,  the  four  archangels  and  the  four 


PAINTING  301 

symbols  of  the  Evangelists,  in  the  midst  of  clouds.  Below,  in 
the  pendentives,  the  twenty-four  elders  are  offering  up  their 
crowns. 

Within  the  apse  is  Christ,  standing  in  clouds,  right  hand 
raised  in  teaching,  scroll  in  left.  Slightly  in  front  of  him,  and 
standing  on  the  ground  of  Paradise,  are  six  figures.  On  the 
right  S.  Paul  with  his  right  arm  over  the*  shoulder  of  S.  Prax- 
edis,  whom  he  is  presenting ;  beyond,  the  much-restored  figure 
of  the  builder.  Pope  Paschal  I.  On  the  left  S.  Peter  similarly 
presenting  S.  Pudentiana  (sister  of  Praxedis),  while  beyond  her 
is  S.  Zeno.  At  each  end  is  the  usual  palm-tree,  with  the  nimbed 
phoenix  of  the  resurrection  in  that  on  the  right.  Beneath  the 
feet  of  the  figures  runs  the  sacred  river  Jordan,  signifying  that 
the  scene  is  beyond  the  present  world.  In  the  predella  below 
is  the  usual  procession  of  the  twelve  sheep  issuing  from  Je- 
rusalem and  Bethlehem,  toward  the  central  Lamb  from  whose 
sacred  mount  issue  the  four  rivers  of  Paradise. 

On  the  triumphal  arch  is  a  unique  presentation  of  the  Heav- 
enly Jerusalem,  not  at  all  according  to  the  specification  in 
Revelation  xxi.,  except  that  the  walls  seem  decorated  with  pre- 
cious stones  and  the  gates  guarded  by  angels.  In  the  hosts  of 
the  saved  that  fill  the  two  pendentives,  robed  in  white  and  with 
palms  in  their  hands,  we  can  also  see  the  echo  of  Revelation 
viii.  9,  "a  great  multitude  ...  of  all  nations  and  kindreds 
and  people  and  tongues  .  .  .  clothed  with  white  robes  and 
with  palms  in  their  hands."  The  heavenly  city  does  not 
contain  as  yet  the  hosts  of  the  saved.  In  the  centre  is  Christ 
flanked  by  two  archangels.  On  a  lower  level  the  two  female 
figures  nearest  Christ  are  the  Church  of  the  Circumcision  and 
the  Church  of  the  Gentiles  followed  by  John  the  Baptist  and 
the  twelve  apostles,  all  carrying  crowns,  extending  in  a  line  on 
each  side  as  far  as  the  gates.  Above  them  are  three  figures 
that  are  pointing  toward  Christ :  the  beardless  Moses,  with  the 
book  of  the  law  {lege),  and  the  bearded  Elias,  the  two  prophets 
of  the  Transfiguration,  probably  thought  to  be  the  two  witnesses 
of  Revelation  (xi.  3).  The  angel  is  the  Angel  of  the  Procla- 
mation of  the  Gospel  (xiv.  6).  Outside  the  gates  of  the  Heav- 
enly Jerusalem,  a  group  of  the  elect  approach  on  either  side. 


302 


CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 


^ 


PAINTING  303 

Taking  restorations  into  account,  —  which  are  more  destructive 
at  these  ends  than  anywhere  else,  —  it  would  seem  as  if  the  ap- 
proaching cohorts  on  the  right  consisted  originally  of  women 
and  those  on  the  left  of  men.  The  former  are  being  received 
only  by  two  angels,  the  latter  by  S.  Paul  and  S.  Peter,  to  whom 
an  angel  is  pointing  as  to  the  doorkeeper. 

The  chapel  of  S.  Zeno  projects  from  the  body  of  the  church 
with  which  it  is  connected  by  a  sort  of  faqade  centring  around 


Mosaic  Vault  in  Cliapel  of  S.  Zeuo,  at  S.  Prassede. 

a  doorway,  whose  window  is  encircled  by  a  double  row  of  me- 
dallion busts :  Christ  and  the  apostles  in  the  outer,  the  Virgin 
and  Child  and  saints  in  the  inner  row.  The  entire  interior  is 
covered  with  mosaics.  The  chapel  is  in  the  form  of  a  Greek 
cross  with  a  central  cross-vault.  There  are  mosaics  on  (1) 
central  vault ;  (2)  four  drums  of  vault ;  (3)  arcades  forming 
cross ;  (4)  end  walls  of  arcades. 

The  central  vault  is  occupied  by  the  half-figure  of  Christ  in 
a  medallion  supported  by  four  angels  with  arms  raised  and  feet 
resting  on  globes.  The  drums  are  filled  by  the  Virgin  and  S. 
John  the  Baptist ;  by  SS.  Peter  and  Paul ;  by  SS.  John,  An- 


304 


CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  MONUMENTS 


drew  and  James ;  by  SS.  Agnes,  Pudentiana  and  Praxedis. 
The  curves  of  the  arcades  forming  the  short  tunnel  vaults  of 
the  cross  have  simply  decorative  patterns  of  geometric  design. 
The  end  walls  had  two  compositions  except  on  the  entrance 
side  —  one  in  the  lunette,  the  other  below.  One  of  these  rep- 
resents the  Mother  of  Paschal,  Theodora,  who  is  called  "  Epis- 
copa  !  "  and  has  a  square  nimbus.    She  accompanies  the  Virgin 


.B^R..^,M, 


Apsidal  Mosaic  of  S.  Maria  in  Domnica  (Ninth  Century). 


and  SS.  Praxedis  and  Pudentiana.  Above  is  the  Lamb  on  a 
rock  accompanied  by  four  stags.  On  the  right  Christ  is  between 
S.  Zeno  and  S.  Valentinus.  An  unusual  scene  is  Christ  de- 
scending into  Hades. 

Even  more  Byzantine  in  their  general  scheme  are  the  face 
and  semi-dome  of  S.  Maria  in  Domnica.  These  rigidly  ordered, 
heavily  framed  mosaics  contain  the  unusual  multitude  of  figures 
characteristic  of  the  mosaics  of  Pope  Paschal.  But  the  com- 
positions are  not  stereotyped.  On  the  face  of  the  arch  Christ 
is  seated  on  the  curved  arch  of  heaven  inside  the  oval  aureole. 


PAINTING  305 

with  an  archangel  on  each  side.  Then  come  the  twelve  apos- 
tles, six  on  each  side,  headed  by  Paul  and  Peter.  They  all 
carry  in  veiled  hands  either  books  or  scrolls,  except  S.  Peter, 
who  has  the  keys.  All  are  robed  in  white  and  stand  on  the 
flowery  ground  of  Paradise.  In  each  pendentive  is  a  prophet, 
with  his  scroll  pointing  upward,  —  one  bearded  and  long-haired, 
(Elias  ?)  of  the  more  usual  prophetic  type  ;  the  other  younger 
and  beardless,  like  the  type  of  Moses  at  SS.  Nereo  ed  Achilleo 
and  S.  Prassede. 

In  the  semi-dome  of  the  apse  the  scene  is  the  veneration  by 
the  heavenly  hosts  of  Mary  as  the  Mother  of  God.  The  Virgin, 
holding  the  Child,  sits  on  a  splendid  throne.  On  either  side 
are  innumerable  angels  in  white  who  bend  forward  in  adora- 
tion, their  heads  encircled  with  a  nimbus.  It  is  impossible  to 
decide  whether  any  distinct  number  of  angelic  classes  is 
intended  —  such  as  the  nine  of  pseudo-Dionysius  or  the  six 
or  seven  of  earlier  writers.  They  are  probably  represented  as 
singing  the  Trisagion.  Pope  Paschal  is  kneeling  before  the 
Virgin,  one  of  whose  feet  he  holds. 

At  S.  Cecilia  we  find  the  third  and  least  successful  of  the 
mosaics  of  Pope  Paschal  I.  On  the  face  is  the  Adoration  of 
the  Virgin  and  Child  (or  of  Mary,  as  Theotokos).  The  rich 
arched-back  throne  is  guarded  by  two  archangels.  From  either 
side  approaches  an  adoring  procession  of  female  martyrs,  both 
crowned  and  bearing  on  veiled  hands  their  martyr's  crown. 
That  the  scene  is  laid  in  heaven  is  shown  by  the  buildings 
of  the  two  heavenly  cities  at  either  end  and  by  the  figures  of 
the  twenty-four  elders  offering  up  their  crowns,  in  the  penden- 
tives  below.  The  ten  female  saints  —  five  on  each  side  —  are 
certainly  those  whose  bodies  (including  those  of  SS.  Cecilia 
and  Agatha)  were  transferred  to  this  church  from  the  Catacombs 
by  Pope  Paschal. 

In  the  semi-dome  is  the  usual  stereotyped  scene,  almost 
identical  with  those  of  S.  Prassede  and  S.  Marco:  Christ, 
surrounded  by  clouds  and  surmounted  by  the  hand  of  God 
holding  the  wreath ;  on  His  right  S.  Paul  and  S.  Cecilia,  who 
presents  Pope  Paschal  holding  the  model  of  the  church.  On 
the  other  side    S.    Peter,  a  young   beardless    martyr    and  a 


306  CLASSIFICATION   OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

female  martyr,  probably  S.  Agatha,  who  was  venerated  here 
immediately  after  S.  Cecilia.  The  usual  palm-tree  at  each 
end  (a  phoenix  on  the  right-hand  tree),  and  the  flowers  that 
carpet  the  ground,  are  intended  to  give  the  local  color  of 
Paradise.  Below  this  is  the  dedicatory  inscription  of  Paschal 
in  three  lines.  The  scene  is  completed  below  by  the  usual 
predella  of  the  Lamb,  the  twelve  sheep,  the  two  cities  and 
the  rivers  of  Paradise. 

Paschal's  successor,  Gregory  IV,  was  the  author  of  the 
mosaic  of  S.  Marco,  which  is  both  the  last  and  the  worst  of 
the  Roman  mosaics  of  the  early  Middle  Ages.  As  usual,  they 
occupy  the  semi-dome  and  the  face  of  the  apse.  The  color- 
ing is  defective,  the  tints  blurred,  the  types  quite  effete  and 
lifeless,  without  even  the  illusion  of  humanity. 

There  are  seven  figures  in  each  composition.  Those  on  the 
face  are  framed  in  a  heavy  double  band  of  jewels  and  scroll- 
work. Busts  of  Christ  and  the  four  symbols  of  the  Evangelists 
enclosed  within  medallions  form  an  upper  row  below  which 
S.  Paul  on  the  right  and  S.  Peter  on  the  left  occupy  the 
pendentives,  in  vigorous  attitudes  pointing  toward  Christ. 

The  figures  of  the  semi-dome  stand  upon  separate  inscribed 
bases,  like  inanimate  statues.  Christ  has  on  His  right  S. 
Felicissimus  and  S.  Mark  the  Evangelist  who  presents  Pope 
Gregory  IV  (828-844),  holding  a  model  of  the  church ;  on  his 
left  Pope  S.  Mark,  S.  Agapitus  and  S.  Agnes.  Beneath 
Christ  is  the  symbolic  phoenix,  while  the  usual  predella  band 
occurs  below,  the  garden  of  Paradise  with  the  twelve  sheep 
issuing  from  the  two  sacred  cities  toward  the  central  Lamb 
standing  on  the  mount  with  the  four  rivers. 

Carlovingian  Frescos.  —  In  painting,  however,  we  find  be- 
fore 850  an  attempt  to  relieve  the  lifelessness  that  had  settled 
upon  art,  by  the  introduction  of  the  element  of  vivacity  of 
gesture  and  attitude  so  characteristic  of  the  Carlovingian  art 
of  the  North.  It  was  not  found,  to  be  sure,  in  the  purely 
hieratic  sacred  scenes  where  the  figures  retained  the  immo- 
bility that  was  regarded  as  their  essential  superhuman  quality, 
but  in  the  more  human  element  of  the  compositions. 

It  is  worth  citing  a  fresco  in  the  old  S.  Clemente  as  illustrat- 


PAINTING 


307 


ing  these  two  rather  disregarded  facts.  It  is  an  Ascension, 
in  which  Christ  rises  in  an  aureole  carried  by  four  angels,  while 
below  are  the  Virgin  and  the  Apostles.  Included  in  the  com- 
position, though  foreign  to  the  scene,  are  two  figures  that  frame 
it  on  either  side  :  one  is  S.  Vitus,  the  other  Pope  Leo  IV,  whose 
square  nimbus  shows  him  to  be  the  donor  of  the  fresco.     The 


Ascension  of  Christ.      Fresco  at  S.  Clemente. 


contrast  between  the  extreme  vivacity  and  varied  attitudes  of 
all  the  participants  in  the  Ascension  scene  and  the  absolute 
immobility  and  frontality  of  the  two  end  figures  is  typical  of 
a  general  fact :  that  for  several  centuries  (VII-XII)  there  were 
two  canons,  one  of  immobility  and  frontality  for  the  divine 
sphere  and  for  juxtaposed  or  single  saints,  and  one  of  relative 
action  and  variety  of  pose  in  historic  and  other  narrative 
scenes.  Ordinarily  the  two  styles  are  not  mixed,  so  that  crit- 
ics are  apt  to  think  that  a  period  that  produces  the  one  is  in- 


308  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

capable  of  the  other.  It  needs  a  scene  such  as  this,  where  by 
exception  the  two  manners  are  combined,  to  prove  that  even  a 
single  artist  was  a  master  of  both  manners.  A  similarly 
treated  scene  had  been  painted  as  early  as  the  sixth  century  in 
the  Catacomb  of  Commodilla. 

Even  during  the  two  centuries  of  decadence  from  the  close 
of  the  ninth  to  that  of  the  eleventh  century,  painting  was  not 
only  practised  in  Rome,  but  was  called  upon  to  produce  some 
of  the  most  extensive  works  in  the  history  of  the  school.  It 
is  true  that  mosaic  painting  was  no  longer  in  use.  The  knowl- 
edge of  it  seems  to  have  been  lost.  Neither  can  it  be  denied 
that  the  fresco-paintings  show  less  of  artistic  quality  than  at 
any  other  time.  Still,  even  now  the  Roman  school  seems  to 
have  been  preeminent  in  Europe. 

Handbook  of  Painting.  —  Curiously  enough  there  appeared  at 
this  time  a  handbook  or  practical  guide  for  painters  with  all 
necessary  receipts  and  directions  for  mixing  and  using  colors 
and  for  making  mosaics.  It  was  written  by  a  painter  named 
Heraclius,  who  called  it  "I>e  Colorihus  et  artibus  Romanorum.^^ 
Internal  evidence  points  to  the  post-Carlovingian  age,  certainly 
before  the  revival.  That  Heraclius  belongs  to  the  Roman 
school  seems  clear  from  the  preface,  where  a  passage  reminds 
one  of  the  well-known  lament  on  the  decay  of  Rome  which  I 
have  already  cited.     He  says,  of  the  city :  — 

"J«m  clecus  ingenii  qnodplebs  Bomana  prohatur 
Decidit,  ut  periit  sapientum  cura  Senatum 
Quis  nunc  has  artes  investigare  valebit 
Quas  isti  artifices^  immensa  niente  potentes 
Invenire  sibi,  potens  est  ostendere  nobis."'' 

Heraclius  expressly  says  that  he  is  himself  a  painter:  "I 
am  not  writing  of  anything  that  I  have  not  previously  tested." 
A  study  of  the  text  of  this  practical  manual  would  show  ex- 
actly how  painters  then  worked. 

Great  Cycles  of  Frescos.  —  Until  the  destruction  of  the  old  S. 
Peter  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  there  remained 
on  the  two  walls  of  its  nave  the  partly  obliterated  frescos  of 
the  Old  and  New  Testament,  painted  by  order  of  Pope  For- 


PAINTING  .     309 

mosus  in  897.  The  bulging  walls,  slanting  outward  on  one 
side,  accumulated  so  much  dust  as  practically  to  conceal  most 
of  the  scenes  from  the  New  Testament,  and  while  those  of  the 
Old  Testament  on  the  opposite  wall  were  clearer,  the  drawings 
and  descriptions  of  them  give  no  idea  of  their  style.  We  must 
merely  admit  that  in  sheer  extent  these  works  surpassed  all 
their  known  predecessors. 

About  ten  years  later  the  school,  perhaps  the  same  artists, 
were  obliged  to  repeat  the  same  feat  by  covering  with  similar 
subjects  the  walls  of  the  nave  of  the  newly  reconstructed  Lat- 
eran  basilica.     These  were  destroyed  in  1310. 

There  are,  however,  five  works  of  this  school  still  wholly  or 
partly  extant,  produced  within  the  same  half  century  or  more, 
which  will  give  a  fair  clew  to  the  style  of  these  greater  works  : 
in  a  chapel  on  the  Coelian ;  in  S.  Maria  in  Pallara  on  the  Pala- 
tine ;  in  S.  Silvestro  at  Tivoli ;  in  S.  Abbondio  at  Eignano ; 
and,  especially,  in  S.  Elia  near  Nepi. 

The  defaced  scene  in  the  chapel  of  S.  Lorenzo  near  SS. 
Giovanni  e  Paolo  on  the  Coelian,  is  interesting  mainly  as  a 
record  of  the  successful  attempt  of  Methodius  and  Pope  Formo- 
sus  to  convert  the  Bulgarians  whose  king  is  here  represented 
as  doing  homage  to  Christ  under  the  patronage  of  the  Pope. 

The  apsidal  fresco  in  S.  Silvestro  at  Tivoli  is  more  impor- 
tant and  shows  that  painters  were  reverting,  after  the  Byzan- 
tine epoch  had  closed,  to  the  models  of  the  early  Christian 
period,  for  the  composition  here  is  clearly  modelled  on  the  apse 
of  SS.  Cosma  e  Damiano,  though  it  contains  fewer  figures. 
Christ  is  standing  on  clouds,  above  the  Jordan,  with  S.  Paul  on 
His  right  and  S.  Peter  on  His  left,  to  whom  He  is  handing  a 
scroll. 

S.  Elia,  Nepi,  and  Other  Monasteries.  —  Almost  the  same  can  be 
said  of  part  of  the  extensive  series  in  the  ruined  monastic  church 
of  S.  Maria  in  Pallara  on  the  Palatine,  which  was  one  of  the 
foremost  monuments  of  the  tenth  and  eleventh  centuries,  the" 
residence  and  fortress  of  several  popes.  The  frescos  were 
ordered,  in  about  the  middle  of  the  tenth  century,  by  a  wealthy 
physician  named  Peter,  who  also  endowed  the  monastery. 

In  the  centre  of  the  apse  is  the  figure  of  Christ  standing  on 


310  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

the  clouds  with  hand  raised  and  open  b|ok:  on  either  side 
are  two  saints ;  S.  Sebastian  and  S.  Zoticus,  S.  Stephen  and  S. 
Lawrence.  Underneath  is  the  narrow  zone  of  the  Lamb  on 
the  rock  and  the  twelve  sheep.  Farther  below  is  a  line  of 
figures  adopted  from  the  Byzantine  school :  the  Virgin  between 
two  archangels  and  four  female  saints,  two  of  whom  are  S. 
Agnes  and  S.  Lucia.  It  is  only  in  this  lower  zone  that  we  find 
the  painters  of  this  century  innovating  on  the  early  Christian 
composition.  This  part  of  the  frescos  has  been  preserved, 
though  in  very  poor  condition ;  but  originally  the  series  was 
much  more  extensive :  on  either  side  of  the  nave  were  scenes 
from  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  and  in  or  near  the  porch  the 
lives  of  the  martyrs  buried  in  the  church  and  represented  in  the 
apse.  Even  the  donor,  Peter,  and  his  wife  were  depicted  on 
either  side  of  the  apse. 

If  none  of  the  works  in  Eome  itself  are  sufficiently  well  pre- 
served to  allow  of  a  clear  opinion  as  to  their  style,  it  is  not 
so  with  the  frescos  in  a  monastic  church  not  far  to  the  north, 
S.  Elia  near  Nepi.  This  large  series  fill  the  apse  and  tran- 
sept, are  fairly  well  preserved  and  are  important  not  only  in 
themselves,  but  because  they  are  signed  by  their  authors,  three 
painters  from  Rome  —  two  brothers  Johannes  and  Stephanus, 
and  their  nephew  Nicholas.  It  has  been  assumed  that  their 
date  is  the  eleventh  century,  but  the  church  was  rebuilt  after 
939  and  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  the  frescos  are  between 
c.  950  and  975.  The  main  scene  in  the  hemicycle  of  the  apse 
is  a  frank  imitation  of  that  of  SS.  Cosma  e  Damiano. 

Christ  stands  in  the  centre  on  the  mystic  mount  with  the 
four  rivers,  with  S.  Peter  on  His  left  and  S.  Paul  on  His  right, 
beyond  whom,  on  either  side,  is  a  saint,  one  of  them  probably 
S.  Elias,  in  P)yzantine  costume.  At  each  end  is  a  palm-tree, 
in  one  of  which  is  a  phoenix.  Below  is  the  traditional  frieze 
of  the  twelve  sheep  on  either  side  of  the  Lamb,  whose  blood 
is  pouring  into  a  chalice.  Still  lower  is  a  line  of  figures,  as 
at  S.  Maria  in  Pallara,  of  Christ  enthroned,  flanked  by  two 
archangels,  beyond  whom  on  either  side  are  four  Virgins 
with  crowns,  recalling  those  of  S.  Apollinare  Nuovo  at  Ra- 
venna of  the  sixth  century,  and  those  of  S.  Maria  in  Pallara. 


PAINTING 


311 


On  the  face  of  the  apse  are  the  long  ascetic  figures  of  the 
twenty- four  elders  in  two  rows,  as  at  Eignano;  only  here 
twelve  of  them  raise  crowns  and  twelve  chalices,  —  a  transi- 
tion between  the  early  mediaeval  type  where  all  have  crowns, 
and  the  later  where  they  are  entirely  replaced  by  chalices. 
Below  the  elders  and  beyond  them  on  the   transept   walls 


■ 

■ip^""' '" '  ^^^H^^^^Bte 

"la.r           ^^ 

m 

iteiiir?«l             II  ■■    ^Bm^^^^M 

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r 

n 

H 

Bl       '^'JHblSK'r^^^^^^KiflBlK^i^k^^v     ^^B^       -  Jb       ^^iHI 

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1 

Female  iSaiiits  and  Archangel,  Fresco  in  Apse  of  S.  Elia,  near  Xepi. 
(Tenth  century.) 


was  a  series  of  oblong  compositions  in  three  tiers ;  those  on 
the  right,  which  alone  are  preserved,  are  mostly  scenes  of  great 
originality  and  rarity  taken  from  the  Apocalypse.  The  series 
appears  to  have  illustrated  this  book  in  the  greatest  detail. 
Doubtless  the  nave  was  filled  with  scenes  from  the  Old  and 
New  Testaments.  The  entire  series  may  be  attributed  to 
the  three  artists  of  the  apse. 

The  dependence  of  these  works  on  earlier  mosaics  is  indicated 
by  the  yellow  ground  for  the  row  of  sheep,  to  imitate  the  gold 


312  CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  MONUMENTS 

cubes ;  by  the  strong  contrasts  of  color  and  sharp  outlines. 
The  extreme  flatness  reminds  one  of  the  last  mosaics  in  Rome, 
at  S.  Marco.  There  is  a  single  yellowish  flesh  tone,  rouged,  and 
a  single  verdigris  body  color,  heightened  by  white  streaks  and 
broken  by  black  lines  with  which  the  slight  reddish  and  gray 
shadings  fail  absolutely  to  unite.  As  a  result  the  bodies  are 
almost  flat  outlined  transparencies.  There  is  absolutely  noth- 
ing Byzantine  in  the  technique,  which  is  far  removed  from  the 
works  of  the  seventh  and  eight  centuries  at  S.  Saba  and  S. 
Maria  Antiqua. 

The  apocalyptic  scenes  that  have  been  identified  are  on  the 
right :  (1)  John  having  the  vision  of  the  enthroned  Lord  ;  (2) 
the  four  angels  having  dominion  over  the  four  seas ;  (3)  the 
angel  chaining  the  dragon ;  (4)  the  four  riders  ;  (5)  a  dragon 
episode.  On  the  left  side :  (6)  conflict  of  angels  with  the  dragon ; 
(7)  the  dragon  pursuing  the  woman.  These  are  the  earliest 
known  examples  of  such  scenes  on  church  walls. 

The  deserted  monastic  church  of  S.  Abbondio  near  E-ignano, 
close  to  the  Tiber  and  to  Mt.  Soracte,  is  of  the  same  school  and 
period  as  the  frescos  at  S.  Elia,  though  less  careful  in  draw- 
ing. The  connection  with  mosaic  compositions  and  with  earlier 
traditions  is  evident,  but  there  are  interesting  variations.  The 
remaining  frescos  cover  only  the  face  of  the  apse,  those  in 
the  hemicycle  having  been  destroyed.  The  upper  row  has  the 
Lamb  in  the  centre  of  the  symbols  of  the  four  evangelists ; 
below,  in  a  second  row  and  on  a  larger  scale,  is  a  half-figure  of 
Christ  in  a  circular  medallion  flanked  by  two  seven-branched 
candlesticks,  two  seraphim  with  six  wings  and  two  groups  of 
angels.  Below,  on  either  side  of  the  hemicycle,  are  the  twenty- 
four  elders  in  two  rows.  The  type  of  both  the  seraphim  and 
the  half-figure  of  Christ  may  be  traced  to  the  Byzantine  school, 
for  they  do  not  belong  to  Western  and  Roman  tradition.  Such 
medallion  busts  of  Christ  are  very  common  in  the  centre  of 
Byzantine  domes  of  every  age.  The  rest  of  the  scene  belongs 
to  the  native  stock. 

It  was  especially  in  the  large  monasteries  throughout  the 
province  of  Rome  that  art  found  a  haven  from  the  religious 
indifference,  penury  and  ignorance  of  the  Papal  Rome  of  the 


PAIXTIXG  313 

tenth  and  eleventh  centuries.  Farfa,  Subiaco,  Soracte,  Monte 
Amiata  helped  to  stay  the  ebb  tide  in  painting,  though  not  en- 
deavoring to  revive  the  art  of  mosaic,  a  task  reserved  to  the 
other  great  monastery  of  Monte  Cassino,  which,  in  order  to  do 
so,  was  obliged  to  import  artists  from  Constantinople,  for  the 
Byzantine  mosai cists  had  not  yet  gone  to  Venice  to  decorate  S. 
Marco.  The  works  I  have  just  desei-ibed  in  the  minor  monas- 
teries of  S.  Elia  and  S.  Abbondio  are  merely  fragments  saved 
out  of  the  ruined  multitude. 

In  an  indirect  way  a  German  Emperor  was  also  the  means  of 
encouraging  Roman  painting.  The  monument  of  the  Emperor 
Otho  III  contained  the  only  work  of  mosaic  painting  extant 
in  Rome  for  a  stretch  of  over  two  centuries,  so  that  it  is  as 
historically  interesting  as  it  is  little  known.  The  burial  of 
this  Italo-phile  in  Rome,  where  he  died,  near  the  east  door  in 
the  vestibule  of  S.  Peter,  gave  him  a  congruous  resting-place. 
Here,  as  Thietraar's  chronicle  relates,  the  figure  of  Christ  stood, 
blessing  all  who  approach.  This  figure  in  mosaic,  flanked  by 
the  princes  of  the  apostles,  still  remains  in  the  Vatican  crypt, 
in  fair  preservation,  though  the  mosaic  picture  is  severed  from 
the  immense  sarcophagus  over  which  it  stood. 

Otho  III  himself  gives  a  proof  of  the  high  esteem  in  which 
the  Roman  school  of  painting  was  held,  for  his  chief  court 
painter  was  the  Italian  artist  John,  almost  certainly  a  Roman, 
whom  he  took  back  with  him  in  c.  990  to  fresco  the  imperial 
palace  at  Aix-la-Chapelle.  His  works  there  were  so  much  ad- 
mired that  the  Emperor  appointed  him  to  an  Italian  bishopric. 
John,  after  a  brief  visit  to  his  native  land,  returned  to  Ger- 
many and  then  settled  at  Liege,  where  he  painted  for  the 
bishops  a  series  of  frescos.  It  is  impossible  to  say  what  in- 
fluence he  had  on  the  German  school. 

Not  much  later  comes  a  series  of  frescos  in  Rome  itself,  in 
one  of  the  pagan  temples  turned  into  a  hall-church  and  dubbed 
S.  Urbano  alia  Caffarella.  Its  deserted,  isolated  position  out- 
side the  city  saved  these  frescos  from  destruction,  but  not 
from  much  repainting.  The  date  of  1011  under  the  Crucifix- 
ion scene  may  be  accurate.  In  the  apse  is  Christ  enthroned 
between  two  angels  and  SS.  Peter  and  Paul.     At  the  opposite 


314 


CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  MONUMENTS 


end,  on  the  inside  of  the  faqade,  is  the  Crucifixion.  On  the  side 
walls  are  lines  of  oblong  compositions  taken  both  from  the 
New  Testament  and  from  the  lives  of  S.  Urban,  S.  Cecilia, 
S.  Lawrence  and  other  saints  whose  relics  were  here. 

The  Crucifixion  is  rather  notable  from  the  presence  of  the 
two  crucified  thieves,  the  angels  above^  and  the   two  donors 


Crucifixion,  Fresco  in  S.  Urbano  alia  Caffarella  (Eleventh  Century). 

below  reverently  approaching  with  cloths  the  suppedaneum  on 
which  Christ's  feet  rest,  to  catch  some  of  the  sacred  blood. 
The  Virgin  and  S.  John,  Longinus  and  the  soldier  with  the 
spear  complete  the  scene.  The  two  donors  seem  especially  in- 
teresting because  they  herald  in  their  types  the  style  of  S. 
Clemente.  Through  the  repainting  it  seems  possible  to  detect 
a  change  from  the  style  of  S.  Elia :  greater  solidity  and  natu- 
ralness as  well  as  more  action. 

Revival  at  S.  Clemente.  —  Shortly  after   the   middle  o^   the 
eleventh  century  some  unknown  painters  decorated  a  large  part 


PAINTING  315 

of  what  is  now  the  subterranean  basilica  of  S.  Clemente,  to- 
gether with  its  porch,  with  a  series  of  fresco  compositions 
larger  in  size  and  fuller  of  figures  than  any  we  have  previously 
encountered. 

The  art  of  these  frescos  at  S.  Clemente  is  on  a  higher  level 
than  that  of  anything  produced  in  Rome  for  many  centuries. 
It  distinctly  raises  the  banner  of  an  epoch-making  revival  in 
painting.  There  were  other  works  of  the  same  age  and  style, 
but  this  series  is  the  only  important  remaining  example.  It 
illustrates  still  further  what  we  have  recognized  as  a  new  fact 
for  the  seventh,  eighth  and  ninth  centuries,  that  for  these 
centuries,  at  least,  the  highest  achievement  is  to  be  sought  here 
and  not  in  the  stiffer  field  of  mosaic  painting. 

It  would  seem  as  if  once  more  the  artist  kindled  to  the  feel- 
ing of  pure  beauty  and  looked  beyond  his  task  of  purveyor  of 
mere  ecclesiastical  information.  And  this  feeling  for  beauty 
was  not  restricted.  It  shows  itself  in  rhythm  of  composition, 
in  simplicity  and  directness  of  narrative,  in  variety  of  attitude, 
in  beauty  of  pose,  as  well  as  in  purity  of  outline,  symmetry  of 
drapery,  softness  of  shading  and  lightness  of  coloring.  These 
qualities  are  to  a  certain  extent  offset  by  the  lack  of  life  and 
dramatic  force  that  were  to  come  in  the  more  psychologic  age 
of  Giotto.  Yet,  even  here,  several  of  the  faces  are  expressive 
of  varied  emotions,  —  such  as  the  pall-bearers  in  the  funeral  pro- 
cession of  the  unknown  saint,  the  father  of  Alexius  and  his 
bride  in  the  death-scene.  The  action  of  the  mother  as  she 
gathers  up  and  carries  the  child,  in  the  scene  of  his  rescue 
from  the  Black  Sea,  are  full  of  naturalness,  even  if  awkward. 

Of  the  four  scenes  belonging  to  this  series  two  relate  to  the 
life  and  legend  of  S.  Clement  and  one  each  to  that  of  S. 
Alexius  and  an  unknown  saint.  Two  were  given  by  Beno  de 
Rapiza  and  his  wife;  one  by  Mary,  the  wife  of  a  butcher! 
The  first  couple  are  themselves  given  in  small  size  approach- 
ing the  saint  in  the  scene  of  the  miracle  by  which  Clement 
restores  the  sight  of  the  blind  Sisinnius.  The  scene  is  laid  in 
a  church  interior  and  Clement  stands  in  attitude  of  adoration 
beside  the  altar.  Theodora,  the  Christian  wife  of  the  pagan 
Sisinnius,  has  come  to  divine  service  and  has  been  followed  by 


316  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

her  wrathful  husband,  who,  as  he  enters,  is  struck  by  blind- 
ness, to  be  led  forward  and  healed  by  Clement.  The  figure  of 
Theodora  is  soft  and  graceful  in  its  antique  costume  and  fil- 
leted head,  standing  foremost  in  the  group  of  worshippers. 

The  two  donors  are  repeated,  by  themselves  with  two  chil- 
dren and  nurse,  below  their  other  painting,  —  the  rescue  of  the 
child  Clement,  — and  these  are  far  removed  from  the  previously 
prevalent  stiffness  of  such  single  figures.  The  gracefully  poised 
head  of  the  wife,  with  its  turban-like  headdress,  is  more  modern 
in  its  appeal  even  than  anything  Giottesque. 

There  is  no  uniformity  in  the  method  of  composition.  In 
the  scene  where  Clement  is  celebrating  mass,  the  frame  en- 
closes but  the  one  theme,  except  for  the  intruding  donors.  The 
same  unity  appears  in  the  funeral  procession  with  its  reception 
at  S.  Clemente.  In  the  Eescue  of  the  Child  there  are  two  suc- 
cessive stages :  one  where  the  mother  is  taking  the  child  from 
the  water ;  the  other  where  she  is  bringing  him  to  the  local 
clergy  assembled  to  honor  the  miracle. 

Then,  in  the  life  of  Alexius  there  are  three  successive  scenes 
in  the  same  picture.  The  saint  presents  himself  in  the  garb 
of  a  pilgrim  before  his  father,  who  fails  to  recognize  him,  and 
he  serves  in  his  father's  house  without  being  recognized.  In 
the  centre,  he  reappears,  mortally  sick  and  visited  by  the 
Pope,  who  gives  him  absolution  and  receives  from  him  the 
written  story  of  his  life.  On  the  right,  the  truth  has  been  pub- 
lished; the  father  and  mother  of  Alexius  are  lamenting  his 
death  and  his  bride  is  embracing  him. 

There  is  a  curious  small  composition  under  the  Sisinnius 
picture,  which  has  a  more  homely  and  everyday  aspect.  It 
is  the  explanation  of  the  blindness  of  Sisinnius  and  portrays 
the  episode  when  Sisinnius,  then  Roman  prefect,  having  sought 
out  Clement  in  the  Catacombs  and  brought  his  slaves  to  seize 
him,  is  directing  and  cursing  them,  because  they  are  so  slow  in 
roping  and  hauling  a  column  which  in  their  common  miracu- 
lous blindness  they  have  all  taken  to  be  S.  Clement !  The 
objurgatory  remarks  of  Sisinnius  are  among  the  earliest  and 
choicest  specimens  of  the  early  Italian  dialect  of  the  people. 

How  are  we  to  account  for  the  artist  or  artists  of  S.  Clemente  ? 


PAIXTIXG 


-317 


Frescos  in  Lower  Church,  S.  Clemente. 
Miracle  of  S,  Clement  (above).  Donors  of  Frescos  (below). 


318  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

What  were  their  antecedents  ?  It  has  been  suggested  that  they 
are  to  be  found  largely  in  the  frescos  of  the  Catacombs  and 
other  works  of  early  Christian  art.  I  do  not  believe  so.  At 
the  same  time  they  cannot  be  linked  to  the  decadent  art  that 
immediately  preceded.  For  the  careful  student  of  the  newly 
discovered  frescos  at  S.  Maria  Antiqua  and  S.  Saba,  the  prob- 
lem is  solved  by  the  recognition  in  them,  or  such  as  they,  of  the 
inspiration  for  the  artist  of  S.  Clemente.  So,  after  all,  it  is, 
though  Roman,  another  tribute  to  Byzantium  —  not  to  the  as- 
cetic and  unaesthetic  Byzantinismof  the  time  in  which  the  Roman 
painter  lived,  but  to  th^  Hellenic  school  that  still  interpreted 
the  beautiful.  Light  coloring,  pure  outline,  clear  story-telling 
—  these  qualities  are  especially  evident  in  the  earlier  frescos 
at  S,  Saba.  These  works  were  visible  in  good  preservation 
before  the  fire  of  Guiscard  which  involved  S.  Clemente  and 
S.  Saba  in  a  common  ruin. 

The  restoration  of  the  basilica  and  monastery  of  S.  Paul 
undertaken  by  Hildebrand  perhaps  even  before  he  became 
Pope  Gregory  VII,  gives,  I  believe,  the  date  of  some  frescos 
in  the  CappeUa  del  Martirologio,  between  the  basilica  and  the 
cloister,  which  escaped  the  fire  of  1823.  Here,  as  at  S.  Urbano, 
the  Crucifixion  occupies  the  end  wall,  treated  in  almost  iden- 
tical fashion,  and  in  direct  descent  from  that  of  S.  Maria  Anti- 
qua. It  is  flanked  by  figures  of  Peter  and  Paul.  The  rest  of 
the  apostles,  supplemented  by  saints,  form  a  continuous  frieze 
of  large-sized  immobile  figures  along  the  side-walls,  separated 
by  palm-trees  and  carrying  inscribed  scrolls  and  emblems. 
Though  much  repainted,  they  show  enough  of  their  original 
character  to  prove  their  distinctly  local  and  non-Byzantine 
style  ;  they  act  as  a  connecting  link  between  the  S.  Urbano 
and  S.  Clemente  frescos. 

There  are  still  in  Rome  other  traces  of  the  school  just  before 
the  fire  of  1084.  In  one  case  —  the  chapel  of  S.  Gabriel  —  the 
donor  is  the  same  Beno  de  Rapiza  of  S.  Clemente. 

Byzantine  Artists.  — It  was  not  from  ignorance  that  the  con- 
temporary Byzantine  style  had  so  little  influence  on  Roman 
artists,  for  works  of  pure  Byzantine  art  were  being  execiited 
now  at  the  very  gates  of  Rome  by  artists  themselves  evidently 


PA  IX  T IX  G  319 

Greeks,  whether  brought  over  by  Desiderius  of  Monte  Cassino 
or  mosaicists  of  the  Greek  Basilian  order.  The  main  doorway 
and  the  triumphal  arch  of  the  church  of  the  Greek  monastery 
at  Grottaf errata  each  have  a  mosaic  in  excellent  preservation 
by  Greek  hands ;  that  over  the  door  has  in  the  centre  Christ 
enthroned,  and  on  one  side  John  the  Baptist,  on  the  other  S. 
Basil,  propedeutical  to  the  true  faith.  The  workmanship  is 
excellent  and  the  style  free  from  excessive  asceticism.  There 
is  depth  and  reality  to  the  figures. 

The  mosaic  of  the  arch   represents  the  adoration   of  the 
Throne,  in  a  form  common  in  the  East,  but  unknown  to  West- 


Pentecost  (Etiinasia),  Apsidal  Mosaic  in  Monastic  Church,  Grottaferrata. 
(Twelfth  century.) 

ern  art.  On  either  side  of  the  vacant  throne  of  the  apocalyptic 
vision  are  seated  the  twelve  apostles,  upon  whom  are  descending 
the  Pentecostal  rays. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  the  Monte  Cassino  school  frescoed 
the  basilica  of  S.  Angelo  in  Formis,  of  which  I  give  a  view 
(p.  255),  both  because  it  is  a  good  example  of  a  basilica  built 
with  materials  from  Rome  and  because  it  is  the  best-preserved 
example  of  an  interior  completely  frescoed,  even  though  the 
work  was  not  done  by  the  Roman  school.  It  gives,  in  a 
modest  way,  the  same  effect  that  must  have  been  given 
by  so  many  interiors  in  Rome  before  the  Renaissance  devasta- 
tion. 

New  Roman  School.  —  When  Paschal  II  called  artists  about 
him  to  rebuild  and  decorate  the  churches,  it  was  not,  therefore, 
necessary  for  him  to  re-create  a  monumental  school  of  painting, 
as  it  was  found  necessary  to  do  in  architecture  and  church  fur- 
niture and  ornament.    At  the  same  time  there  was  a  difference 


320 


CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 


in  the  two  branches  —  fresco  and  mosaic.  The  Koman  school 
had  certainly  omitted  mosaic  work  from  its  repertoire  for  over 
two  centuries ;  at  first  for  lack  of  funds,  later  from  ignorance 
also.  Where  did  Paschal  II  find  the  mosaicists  whom  he  em- 
ployed ?  One  can  only  guess.  He  could  draw  from  Venice,  as 
his  successors  did,  for  S.  Marco's  decoration  was  then  begun; 
or  from  Sicily,  where  Cefalu  had  already  been  decorated ;  or, 
perhaps,  from  Monte  Cassino,  of  which  school  we  know  but 
little.    At  all  events  from  somewhere  mosaicists  came  to  Rome 


Apse  Mosaic  of  S.  Clemen te. 


and  decorated  the  faqade  of  S.  Bartolommeo  alP  Isola  with  a 
work  of  which  only  the  central  half-figure  of  Christ  remains ; 
and  the  apse  of  S.  Maria  in  Monticelli.  The  former  Christ  has 
a  flatness  of  effect  and  an  inexperience  of  handling  that  argue 
native  talent. 

And  yet,  in  a  few  years,  still  under  Paschal  II,  the  apse  of 
S.  Clemente  was  produced,  a  work  which  in  its  essentials  is 
based  on  old  Roman  traditions,  and  in  its  technique  is  almost 
perfect.  In  its  general  design  it  figures  the  vine,  representing 
the  redeemed  Church,  whose  spirals  cover  the  apse,  and  Christ 
the  Redeemer  on  the  Cross  in  the  centre ;  the  main  difference 
between  this  and  the  early  Christian  interpretation  of  tkfe 
scene  being  the  substitution  of  the  human  figure  for  the  lamb 


PAINTING 


321 


on  the  cross.  The  earthly  Paradise  and  the  river  Jordan  at 
the  base,  with  their  abundance  of  animal  and  symbolic  life,  are 
purely  classic  in  idea  and  even  in  technique,  whereas  the  little 
figures  of  mediaeval  creation  that  are  interwoven  in  the  spirals 
are  of  heavy  Romanesque  type.  Only  on  the  face  of  the  apse, 
where  the  large  figures  of  SS.  Peter  and  Paul,  SS.  Lawrence 


1 

i 

■ 

L 

31 

Pi 

I 

a 

1 

E  ^j&  f  .  -<i.  ~     .''^mI^HP 

Apse  Mosaic  of  S.  Maria  Nuova  (S.  Fraucesca  Romaua). 


and  Clement,  loom  up  in  distinct  contrast,  do  we  see  a  touch  of 
Byzantine  influence  in  their  being  seated  instead  of  standing. 

On  the  other  hand  the  group  of  foreign  artists  produced  one 
apsidal  mosaic  in  Rome  in  the  years  immediately  after  Paschal 
II,  in  the  newly  rebuilt  S.  Maria  Nuova  (S.  Francesca  Romana) 
in  the  Porum.  It  is  unique  in  design  and  stj'-le  and  far  from 
a  success  ;  its  authors  were  not  at  home  in  their  medium.  As 
the  Rhenish  and  other  sculptors  of  the  North  (even  the  Tus- 
cans) reproduced  at  this  time  the  motif  of  early  Christian 
sarcophagi,  where  arcades  frame  single  or  coupled  figures,  so 


322 


CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 


here  each  figure  is  placed  under  an  arcade,  with  archivolts  and 
shafts  imitated  from  illuminated  manuscripts,  which  also  in- 
spired the  patterns  of  the  fan-shaped  top.  The  tormented  lines 
of  the  drapery  show  the  descent  from  the  Carlovingian  type,  a 
style  common  among  Northern  artists  of  this  time. 

There  are  but  five  figures.  In  the  centre  the  enthroned, 
richly  robed  and  bejewelled  Virgin,  holding  the  Child  not  in 
the   Byzantine   fashion,    straight   before  her   in  her  lap^  but 


Apsidal  Mosaics  of  S.  Maria  in  Trastevere. 

standing  and  turning  toward  her  almost  in  profile.  On  her 
right  are  S.  James  and  S.  John ;  on  her  left  S.  Peter  and  S. 
Andrew  in  costumes  that  ape  the  classic.  There  is  a  curious 
attempt  to  imitate  solid  masonry  above  the  arcades  that  en- 
circle the  figures. 

S.  Maria  in  Trastevere.  —  As  the  twelfth  century  advances 
Byzantine  influences  penetrate  beyond  mere  superficialities,  in 
mosaics  if  not  in  frescos,  probably  because  Roman  artists  were 
learning  again  to  handle  the  cubes,  after  long  disuse,  under  the 
instruction  of  Byzantine  masters.  The  apse  and  facade  of 
S.  Maria  in  Trastevere  are  both  attributed  to  about  1140,  and 
bear  no  connection  with  the  contemporary  work  at  S.  Maria 
Nuova.     The  fagade  mosaic  is  badly  restored.     In  the  centre 


PAINTING  323 

are  the  Virgin  and  Child  enthroned ;  at  their  feet  two  small 
kneeling  figures,  probably  the  Popes  who  built  and  restored  the 
church.  A  line  of  ten  female  figures  stands,  five  on  either 
side  of  the  centre.  They  are  richly  robed  and  carry  lamps. 
Their  nimbus  proclaims  them  saints.  They  probably  represent 
the  female  saints  whose  relics  were  placed  here.  They  have 
been  mistakenly  interpreted  as  the  wise  and  foolish  virgins, 
and  two  of  the  figures  have  been  erroneously  restored  with 
lamps  reversed,  on  this  supposition.  The  rest  preserve  their 
lighted  lamps. 

The  mosaic  of  the  apse  is  in  far  better  preservation.  In 
the  centre  is  Christ  enthroned,  with  book  in  left  hand,  while 
with  His  right  arm  He  embraces  the  shoulder  of  the  Virgin 
seated  on  His  right.  He  is  saying,  in  the  words  inscribed  on 
the  book,  Veni  electa  mea  et  ponam  in  te  thronum  meum. 
Further  to  the  right  are  S.  Callixtus,  S.  Lawrence  and  Pope 
Innocent  II,  holding  the  model  of  the  church.  On  the  left  are 
S.  Peter,  Popes  Cornelius  and  Julius  and  S.  Calepodius.  In 
most  cases  these  figures  were  selected  because  their  relics  are 
in  the  church.  They  are  identified  by  inscriptions  between 
their  feet.  Below  is  the  usual  predella  band  of  the  central 
lamb  and  the  twelve  sheep  issuing  from  the  two  sacred  cities. 

On  the  face  of  the  apse,  in  the  centre,  is  the  cross  in  a 
lum.inous  circle ;  on  either  side  the  seven  candlesticks,  and 
beyond  the  four  Beasts  with  the  inscribed  names  of  the  evan- 
gelists. Below  are  the  two  prophets  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah  with 
inscribed  scrolls.  Under  them  an  exquisite  decorative  panel 
of  classic  taste.  It  is  particularly  in  the  prophets  that  we  see 
some  analogy  to  the  earlier  mosaic  at  S.  Clemente.  The 
figures  in  the  apse  remind  one  of  those  in  the  Cajypella  del 
Martirologio  at  S.  Paul. 

Toscanella,  S.  Pietro. — There  is  at  S.  Pietro  at  Toscanella  a 
fresco  that  seems  one  of  the  finest  products  of  the  Byzantine 
section  of  the  Roman  school  and  to  date  not  after  the  middle 
of  the  twelfth  century.  It  is  the  last  great  product  of  the  old 
ideas  of  apocalyptic  character  that  were  soon  to  be  superseded, 
and  in  that  respect  is  the  lineal  descendant  of  S.  Elia  and  Rig- 
nano.     At  S.  Pietro  the  frescos  cover  the  semi-dome  and  face 


324  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

of  the  apse.  In  the  semi-dome  is  a  colossal  standing  figure  of 
Christ  in  the  centre,  robed  in  white,  holding  a  globe  in  His  right 
and  an  open  book  in  His  left  hand.  On  either  side  of  Him  a 
long-robed  angel  withdraws  from  Him  with  gestures  of  amaze- 
ment. Below  are  two  iiying  angels  and  four  half-figures  of 
angels  with  inscriptions.  Further  below  a  line  of  the  twelve 
apostles,  separated  by  palm-trees,  not  in  hieratic  stiff  attitudes, 
but  conversing  animatedly  or  gazing  upward  in  truly  Carlovin- 
gian  style.    Under  this  is  a  line  of  busts  of  saints  in  medallions. 

On  the  face  of  the  apse  the  encircling  band  has  the  Lamb 
in  the  centre  and  three  half-figures  of  angels  on  each  side. 
On  the  centre  of  the  Avall-face  is  a  half-figure  of  Christ  in  a 
medallion.  He  blesses  in  the  Greek  manner.  On  either  side 
are  the  seven  candlesticks,  two  seraphs  and  the  symbols  of 
the  four  evangelists.  Below,  on  either  side  of  the  arch,  the 
twenty-four  elders  are  offering  up  their  crowns. 

Several  series  in  the  Roman  province  seem  to  show  the 
presence  here  of  other  artists  than  those  trained  in  the  Roman 
school  itself,  though  it  may  be  an  error  to  exclude  them  from 
it  when  we  understand  how  catholic  in  its  tastes  the  school 
was.  In  the  cathedral  of  Anagni,  for  example,  where  the  pave- 
ments and  all  the  sacred  furniture,  such  as  canopies,  altars, 
paschal  candlesticks,  tombs,  were  the  work  of  Roman  decora- 
tors, the  crypt  is  covered  on  walls  and  vaults  with  frescos, 
the  majority  of  which  belong  to  the  twelfth  century.  Ignored 
by  critics  until  very  recently,  they  now  appear  as  among  the 
best  preserved  and  most  interesting  examples  of  this  period, 
full  of  force  and  originality.  Some  of  the  themes,  especially 
those  from  the  Apocalypse,  are  unique.  The  scene  of  the 
Elders  offering  up  their  chalices  and  the  doctors,  Galen,  etc., 
are  by  a  lineal  descendant  of  the  artists  of  S.  Elia. 

Subiaco.  —  At  Subiaco,  in  the  churches  of  the  famous  Bene- 
dictine monastery,  there  is  even  closer  connection  with  Rome. 
These  much-neglected  frescos  of  the  vaults  and  walls  of  the 
subterranean  church  of  the  Sacro  Speco  are  now  being  carefully 
studied.  Those  on  the  vaults  seem  to  me  slightly  earlier  than 
the  rest.  Instead  of  dating  them  from  Abbot  John  VI,  after 
1217,  which  is  the  correct  date  for  most  of  the  decoration  of 


PAINTING 


325 


the  walls,  they  might  be  attributed  to  the  years  succeeding 
1165,  when  some  Greek  Basilian  monks,  fleeing  from  their  own 
monastery  of  Grottaferrata,  sought  refuge  at  the  Sacro  Speco, 
bringing  precious  objects  with  them.  We  have  seen  that  Grot- 
taferrata possessed  a  school  of  mosaic  and  fresco  painting,  and 
some  Byzantine  elements  of  these  Subiaco  frescos  would  be 
reasonably  ex- 
plained by  this 
hypothesis.  The 
three  vaults  and  the 
walls  are  covered 
with  them.  But, 
through  the  veil  of 
restorations  we  seem 
to  trace  a  date  rather 
later  than  this  for 
the  conception  of 
these  scenes,  one 
that  would  connect 
them  with  the 
Koman  art  that 
afterward  produced 
the  Cosmatus  work 
at  the  Sancta  Sanc- 
torum. The  vaults 
have  a  central  figure 
in  a  heavily  bor- 
dered medallion  sur- 
rounded by  eight 
figures ;  those  in  the 
pendentives  being 
entire,  the  intermediate  being  three-quarter  figures.  In  the 
central  vault  the  medallion  has  the  three-quarter  figure  of 
Christ;  in  the  pendentives  are  four  archangels  and  between 
them  four  apostles,  Peter,  Paul,  John  and  Andrew.  In  the 
second  vault  S.  Benedict  occupies  the  centre.  The  third  vault 
contains,  in  the  centre,  the  Lamb,  and  in  four  fields  the  four 
evangelists.     The  later  similar  compositions  by  Cosmatus  in 


Painting  of  Vault  in  Lower  Church  of  Sacro 

Speco  at  Subiaco. 

(Early  thirteenth  century.) 


326  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

the  Sancta  Sanctorum  at  Rome  make  the  connection  quite  plain. 
The  scenes  on  the  walls,  by  Conxolus,  are  better  preserved. 

The  lower  chapel  of  S.  Gregory,  beneath  the  subterranean 
church  at  Subiaco,  has  some  unusual  frescos  dated  by  a  con- 
temporary inscription  in  1228,  painted  perhaps  by  a  monk 
named  Oddo.  The  principal  scene  is  that  of  the  consecra- 
tion of  the  chapel  by  Pope  Gregory  IX,  in  the  preceding  year, 
1227,  the  Pope  bending  over  at  the  altar,  assisted  by  two 
clerics.  Another  scene  is  a  S.  Gregory  the  Great  in  company 
with  the  ulcerous  Job.  The  artist  is  of  the  purely  native 
Koman  school  without  a  trace  of  Byzantinism.  On  the  con- 
trary the  vault  of  the  chapel  shows  a  different  and  earlier 
hand,  as  Byzantine  as  that  of  the  subterranean  church,  who 
has  placed  the  four  signs  of  the  evangelists  in  as  many  me- 
dallions separated  by  six-winged  seraphims.  Besides  a  Cruci- 
fixion and  a  Christ  between  Peter  and  Paul  the  Roman  artist's 
most  remarkable  product  is  a  portrait  of  S.  Prancis,  which  is  con- 
jectured to  be  the  most  authentic  in  existence,  a  contemporary 
study  made  by  Friar  Oddo  when  S.  Prancis  visited  the  Sacro 
Speco  in  1223.     This,  however,  is  doubtful. 

Varied  Art  of  the  Thirteenth  Century.  —  Whatever  compara- 
tive unity  there  may  have  been  in  Roman  painting  gave  way 
in  the  thirteenth  century  to  variety  and  individualism.  The 
city  became  the  main  stamping-ground,  the  inspiring  foster- 
mother  of  the  painter,  stimulating  in  its  themes  and  opportuni- 
ties. It  is  true  that  nothing  is  produced  that  breathes  such 
pure  classicism  as  the  S.  Clemente  frescos,  but  the  old  Roman 
traditions  are  unbroken;  they  appear  clearly  in  the  series  at  S. 
Lorenzo-f uori-le-mura.  At  the  same  time  there  were  produced 
in  Rome,  in  the  first  decade  of  the  century,  some  mosaics  of 
pure  Byzantine  workmanship,  the  apses  of  S.  Peter  and  S. 
Paul,  by  the  mosaicists  sent  from  Venice  to  Innocent  III  and 
Honorius  III. 

The  apse  of  S.  Peter  has,  of  course,  entirely  disappeared, 
but  can  be  studied  in  drawings.  It  stands  alone  in  the  use  of 
a  few  colossal  figures  :  Christ  and  SS.  Peter  and  Paul. 

At  S.  Paolo  the  apse  mosaic  still  exists,  but  so  thoroughly 
renovated  after  the   fire  that  criticism  can  bear  only  on  the 


PAINTING  327 

composition.  Christ  has  Paul  and  Luke  on  His  right ;  Peter 
and  Andrew  on  His  left.  In  the  frieze  below,  the  rest  of  the 
apostles  (ten)  are  adoring  the  throne  flanked  by  angels.  This 
scene  we  have  seen  at  Grottaferrata.  It  is  a  purely  Byzan- 
tine conception. 

The  native  Roman  artists,  commonly  called  the  Cosmati,  at 
this  time  seem  not  to  have  gone  beyond  the  creation  of  small 
mosaic  pictures.  Perhaps  it  was  their  inability  to  produce  the 
more  colossal  works  that  led  to  the  calling  of  the  Greeks  from 
Venice.  In  1218  a  small  work  of  this  sort  was  made  by 
Jacobus  Cosmati  for  the  hospital  of  S.  Tommaso  in  Form  is. 
It  is  a  circular  mosaic  in  a  medallion  with  gold  ground.  Christ 
is  seated,  and  on  either  side  of  him  is  a  released  captive,  one 
white,  the  other  black.  The  white  carries  a  cross  and  his  feet 
are  shackled  ;  the  negro  is  manacled.  While  unpretentious,  it 
is  a  work  in  excellent  taste  and  free  style.  A  few  years  before 
the  same  artist  had  made  a  figure  of  Christ  in  mosaic  over  the 
side  door  of  the  facade  of  the  Cathedral  of  Civita  Castellana, 
also  a  pure  product  of  Latin  art. 

S.  Lorenzo.  —  The  most  considerable  work  now  remaining  in 
Rome  itself  by  the  painters  of  the  first  half  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  whose  active  productivity  is  incontestable,  is  the 
series  painted  in  the  porch  and  inner  faqade  of  S.  Lorenzo  in 
the  time  of  Honorius  III  or  shortly  after.  There  are  about 
forty  small  compositions  in  regular  rows,  telling  the  stories  of 
saints  whose  relics  are  preserved  in  the  church  :  Lawrence, 
Stephen,  Hippolytus,  Sixtus,  as  well  as  scenes  connected  with 
the  foundation  and  history  of  the  Church,  ending  with  the 
coronation  of  Peter  de  Courtenay  as  king  of  Jerusalem  by 
Honorius  III.  The  wholesale  repainting  leaves  it  possible 
merely  to  see  that  while  the  peculiar  charm  and  delicacy  of  S. 
Clemente  are  lacking,  the  same  school  has  continued  to  exist  in 
Rome.  The  compositions  are  simpler  and  with  fewer  figures ; 
the  attitudes  more  natural  and  easy,  without  the  awkward 
grace  and  flowing  lines  of  the  older  artists.  A  certain  bravura 
of  attitude  and  gesture  reminds  one  of  French  miniatures. 

In  better  preservation  is  the  fresco  over  the  tomb  of  Car- 
dinal Fieschi  in  the  same  church,  dated  1250.     It  is  a  votive 


328  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

picture  with  the  scene  that  was  to  become  so  common:  the 
Virgin  and  Child  with  a  few  saints  and  the  donor  and  Pope ; 
here  it  is  SS.  Lawrence  and  Stephen,  Pope  Innocent  IV  and 
Cardinal  Fieschi. 

Naturalism.  —  In  the  second  half  of  the  thirteenth  century 
artists  attempt  in  quite  distinct  ways  to  attain  to  the  natural- 
ness of  style  that  was  to  be  their  goal.  The  two  styles  — 
Byzantine  and  Eoman  —  continue  to  exist  side  by  side.  An 
almost  farcical  parody  of  the  former  is  in  .the  chapel  of  S.  Sil- 
vestro  annexed  to  the  church  of  the  SS.  Quattro  Coronati. 
The  central  composition  is  a  peculiar  interpretation  of  the 
Last  Judgment,  in  abbreviated  form.  This  is  surrounded  by 
eight  scenes  from  the  legend  of  Pope  Sylvester  and  Constan- 
tine.  Accessories  and  costume  are  unduly  accentuated,  and 
the  figures  are  awkward  and  lifeless.  Neither  before  nor 
after  was  so  poor  a  work   produced  in  Rome. 

At  the  same  time  the  native  school  was  producing  works  at 
S.  Agnese  and  S.  Cecilia  that  show  progress.  In  the  former 
church  the  scenes  froni  the  life  of  S.  Catherine. and  S.  Agatha 
have  the  solid  treatment  of  drapery  and  forms,  the  massing  of 
shadows  and  the  sculptural  effects  that  reach  their  climax  later 
in  the  masterly  art  of  Cavallini.  S.  Agnese  was,  two  centuries 
ago,  a  large  picture-gallery  for  this  period ;  the  surviving  frag- 
ments are  now  mainly  in  the  Lateran  museum.  Compared 
with  earlier  work  (S.  Clemente)  there  is  loss  of  delicacy  and 
grace,  but  gain  in  life  and  reality. 

At  about  this  time  there  were  painted  in  the  churches  of 
Toscanella,  especially  at  S.  Maria  Maggiore,  an  extensive 
series,  supplemented  by  some  of  earlier  and  some  of  later 
date.  It  is  probable  that  the  Byzantine  section,  of  the  Roman 
school  was  responsible  for  most  of  this  work. 

Toscanella,  S.  Maria.  —  At  S.  Maria  Maggiore  in  the  apse  is 
the  colossal  standing  figure  of  Christ  with  an  adoring  angel  on 
either  side.  Below,  a  line  of  the  twelve  apostles  quietly  dig- 
nified and  not  full  of  .action,  as  at  S.  Pietro,  considerably  re- 
stored.    It  is  a  work  of  the  twelfth  century. 

On  the  face  of  the  apse  is  a  grandiose  composition  of  the 
Last  Judgment,  covering  the  entire  wall  to  roof.     At  the  sum- 


PAINTING  329 

mit,  within  an  iridescent  aureole,  is  the  enthroned  Christ  sur- 
rounded by  a  multitude  of  angels.  On  either  side  are  seated 
the  apostles.  Below,  on  the  right,  is  the  army  of  the  elect, 
headed  by  the  Virgin,  who  is  presenting  her  mother,  S.  Anne. 
Adam  and  Eve  are  followed  by  the  groups  of  patriarchs,  kings, 
prophets,  popes,  bishops,  priests  and  monks.  Below  Christ 
stands  the  cross  surrounded  by  the  instruments  of  the  Passion, 
near  which  kneels  the  small  figure  of  the  donor,  Secundianus. 
To  the  right,  under,  the  elect,  is  the  scene  of  the  resurrection 
from  the  dead,  who  are  leaving  their  tombs  to  the  sound  of  the 
angels'  trumps. 

From  the  throne  of  Christ  proceeds  toward  the  left  a  river 
of  fire  forming  the  boundary  of  the  infernal  regions,  into  which 
angels  with  long  tridents  are  thrusting  the  damned,  received 
and  tormented  by  numerous  demons  who  pass  them  along  to  a 
colossal  Lucifer  with  snake-mouths  above  and  exits  below. 
He  devours  them  with  his  snake  mouths  and  spues  them  out 
into  the  enormous  maw  of  hell.  This  seems  to  be  later  than 
the  composition  in  the  semi-dome  and  to  date  from  the  third 
quarter  of  the  thirteenth  century.  It  is  a  most  important 
work. 

In  the  right  aisle,  the  Virgin  and  Child  enthroned  between 
two  female  saints,  and  the  Flagellation  of  Christ,  are  of  the 
same  date  and  style  as  the  apse.  Another  Virgin  and  Child 
enthroned  with  four  flying  angels  and  two  saints,  where  the 
throne  has  a  Roman  mosaic  decoration,  is  a  work  of  the  pre- 
Giottesque  Roman  school,  in  a  free  and  humanistic  style. 

Sancta  Sanctorum. —  In  order  to  find  in  Rome  an  echo  of  the 
epic  compositions  at  Toscanella,  we  must  turn  to  its  greatest 
painter  of  the  early  revival,  Pietro  Cavallini,  The  work  that 
immediately  precedes  him,  besides  the  series  at  S.  Agnese  and 
S.  Cecilia,  already  mentioned,  is  the  decoration  of  the  Sancta 
Sanctorum  chapel  in  1277  and  1278  by  Cosmatus.  Was 
Cosmatus  the  master  of  Cavallini  ?  No  answer  deduced  from 
the  style  seems  possible  on  account  of  the  serious  restoration 
of  the  Sancta  Sanctorum  frescos  and  the  difficulty  of  studying 
its  mosaics.  The  chapel  is  closed  to  students,  on  account  of 
its  sanctity,  and  has  been  closed  for  about  three  centuries.     It 


330  CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  MONUMENTS 

is  reached  through  a  vestibule  whose  vault  is  covered  with  a 
Virgin  and  Child  in  mosaic.  Another  mosaic  in  the  apse 
represents  S.  Lawrence  and  S.  Stephen  with  two  angels,  on 
either  side  of  the  enthroned  Virgin  and  Child,  before  whom 
two  Popes  are  kneeling.  Below  is  a  line  of  figures  of  Popes 
including  Leo  the  Great,  Gelasius  and  Paschal  11.  In  the 
ellipsoidal  vault  of  the  apse  is  a  mosaic  of  Christ  in  a  medal- 
lion supported  by  angels  with  outspread  wings.  The  vault  and 
walls  of  the  chapel  itself  are  frescoed.  In  the  vaulting  com- 
partments are  the  evangelists  and  their  symbols  on  a  blue 
ground,  two  of  which  are  sufficiently  well  jJi'^served  to  remind 
us  distinctly  of  Cavallini's  work  and  to  connect  Cosmatus 
with  him.  Below,  on  either  side  of  the  pointed  windows,  is  a 
shell-crowned  framework  enclosing  a  composition.  There  are 
eight  scenes,  relating  to  the  saints  whose  relics  are  in  the 
chapel :  (1)  Decapitation  of  S.  Paul ;  (2)  Crucifixion  of  S. 
Peter;  (3)  (4)  Miracles  of  S.  Nicholas;  (5)  S.  Lawrence  on 
the  gridiron;  (6)  Stoning  of  S.  Stephen  ;  (7)  Christ  enthroned; 
(8)  S.  Nicholas  offering  the  Chapel  to  S.  Peter.  Beneath  the 
windows  in  a  series  of  twenty-eight  trefoil  arches  are  as  many 
single  figures:  prophets,  apostles,  saints,  bishops,  monks,  framed 
in  twisted  columns,  —  a  design  that  Cavallini  seems  to  have 
reproduced  in  the  next  decade  at  S.  Cecilia. 

The  whole  scheme  of  decoration  is  charmingly  symmetrical 
and  complete,  and  places  Cosmatus  in  the  front  rank  of  his 
contemporaries.  The  restoration  of  the  frescos  by  Nanni 
under  Sixtus  V  has,  however,  deprived  the  frescos  of  their 
stylistic  value.  Still,  one  fact  is  certain:  they  are  a  prod- 
uct of  direct  Roman  tradition  with  scarcely  a  trace  of  Byzan- 
tinism,  and  foreshadow  the  work  of  Cavallini. 

Rome:  S.  Maria  Maggiore.  — A  few  years  ago  some  fragments 
were  found,  between  the  present  Renaissance  coffered  ceiling 
and  the  roof  of  the  transept  of  S.  Maria  Maggiore  at  Rome,  of 
a  series  of  frescos  which  once  must  have  entirely  covered  the 
walls  above  the  mosaics  of  the  nave.  In  the  left  transept 
there  were  eight  large  medallion-circles,  enclosing  busts  of 
which  four  remain.  Fragmentary  as  they  are,  their  presejya- 
tion  is  sufficiently  good  to  show  that  they  must  belong  to  the 


PAINTING  331 

time  of  Pope  Nicholas  IV,  who  built  the  palace  next  to  the 
church  (c.  1288),  restored  the  apse-mosaic  and  added  those  on 
the  facade.  The  heads  of  S.  Peter  and  S.  Paul,  so  familiar  in 
many  variations  of  the  traditional  features,  may  serve  as  touch- 
stones of  comparison :  they  are  not  ascetic  Byzantine  ;  they  do 
not  have  the  hardness  of  Cimabue.  The  sense  of  life  comes 
from  a  combination  of  portrait-study  with  adherence  to  type, 
and  a  method  akin  to  impressionism  in  the  use  of  color.  The 
technique,  with  its  hatched  lines,  is  far  from  that  of  Giotto,  as 
well  as  from  that  of  the  author  of  the  decorative  Roman  Old 
Testament  scenes  at  Assisi.  There  is  a  breadth,  swing  and 
vigor  that  bespeak  a  master  then  in  the  first  fulness  of  his 
powers,  who  must  be  reckoned  with  as  a  "  great  unknown  " 
preceding  Giotto  and  greater  than  either  Cimabue  or  Duccio. 
As  this  is  not  an  example  of  the  earlier  manner  of  Cavallini, 
before  his  S.  Cecilia  work,  then  we  must  acknowledge  the  exist- 
ence of  another  almost  equally  great  Roman  master  at  this 
time,  whose  intense  vigor  and  vitality  show  as  plainly  the  new 
life  as  does  the  more  sculpturesque  calm  and  breadth  of  Caval- 
lini. From  his  hand,  perhaps,  are  some  of  the  Assisi  scenes, 
such  as  the  sacrifice  of  Isaac,  and  from  his  workshop  proceeded, 
perhaps,  a  Virgin  and  Child  with  saints  at  S.  Saba,  and  some 
of  the  Assisi  compositions  with  heavy  architectural  frame- 
works. By  a  different  master,  more  addicted  to  broad  masses 
than  to  linear  methods,  is  a  unique  Virgin  and  Child  uncovered 
at  S.  Bartolommeo  all'  Isola. 

Assisi.  —  Some  time  before  this  the  work  of  decorating  the 
double  church  of  S.  Francis  at  Assisi  had  begun.  The  theme 
of  the  succession  of  artists  and  schools  who  had  a  share  in  it 
is  too  complicated  to  be  discussed  here.  Tuscans,  Umbrians 
and  Romans  rubbed  elbows  there  for  over  forty  years.  The 
relative  shares  of  Cimabue  and  Giotto  are  still  heatedly  dis- 
puted. The  hand  of  several  Roman  artists  has  been  traced  by 
recent  writers,  and  names  have  been  attributed  to  some  of  them  : 
Cavallini,  Gaddi,  Rusutti,  Torriti. 

•  Cavallini.  —  The  personality  of  Pietro  Cavallini  has  been 
looming  up  very  prominently  during  the  last  decade  as  a 
partner  —  even  a  predecessor  —  of  Giotto  in  the  revival  of  paint- 


332 


CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  MONUMENTS 


ing.  We  were  familiar  with  Vasari's  fables  which  made  of  him 
Giotto's  pupil  and  his  assistant  in  the  "  Navicella "  mosaic  at 
S.  Peter,  and  assigned  to  him  frescos  at  S.  Maria  and  S.  Cecilia 
in  Trastevere,  S.  Maria  in  Aracoeli,  in  Rome,  and  others  in 
Florentine  churches  and  at  S.  Francis  in  Assisi.  The  only 
two  facts  of  which  we  were  certain  are :  (1)  that  he  completed 
in  1291  a  series  of  six  mosaic  compositions  in  the  apse  of  S. 

Maria  in  Trastevere 
and  (2)  that  in  1308 
he  was  in  the  service 
of  the  court  of 
Naples,  having  left 
Eome  after  the  de- 
parture of  the  Popes 
for  Avignon.  Ghi- 
berti  admired  him  as 
one  of  the  greatest 
of  masters  and  was 
Vasari's  source  for 
most  of  his  list  of 
works.  Ghiberti's 
judgment  is  now 
being  confirmed. 

At  S.  Maria  in 
Trastevere  it  was  a 
narrow  frieze  of  six 
compositions  that 
Cavallini  added 
below  the  main  mosaics  in  the  curve  and  face  of  the  apse,  all 
illustrating  the  Life  of  the  Virgin.  They  are :  the  Nativity, 
Annunciation,  Vision  of  the  Shepherds,  Adoration  of  the  Magi, 
Presentation  and  Death  of  the  Virgin.  Below  this  frieze  is  a 
single  scene  on  a  larger  scale :  the  bust  of  the  Virgin  and 
Child  in  a  medallion  flanked  by  Peter  and  Paul  and  the 
kneeling  donor,  Bertoldo  Stefaneschi.  *  Cavallini  completed 
the  work  in  1291,  according  to  an  inscription  now  lost. 

No  artist  can  be  as  free  in  his  handling  when  he  uses  the 
medium  of  mosaic  cubes,  and  yet  Cavallini  almost  approaches 


Mosaic  by  Cavallini  in  S.  Maria,  in  Trastevere. 
"Birth  of  the  Virgin." 


PAINTING  333 

the  untrammelled  realism  of  the  early  Christian  mosaicists  in 
his  handling  of  tones  and  masses  in  these  frieze  compositions. 
No  sane  critic  can  now  call  them  "  Byzantine."  When  we 
say  that  the  composition  is  w^ell  balanced,  the  action  often 
dramatic,  the  story  well  told,  the  accessories  decorative  but  not 
overloaded,  the  figures  graceful,  natural  and  well  draped,  we 
will  yet  have  missed  the  keynote,  which  is  the  sense  of  life 
and  reality. 

The  art  which  Cavallini  embodied  in  these  Trastevere 
mosaics  is  that  of  a  mature  master,  sure  of  his  style  and  not  an 
eclectic.  At  that  time,  in  1291,  Giotto  was  only  twenty-five 
years  old;  not  old  enough  to  have  founded  a  school.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  Giotto  was  then  forming  himself  in  Rome.  So 
astonishing  is  the  resemblance  between  these  mosaics  and  the 
works  assigned  to  Giotto's  youth  that  one  is  forced  to  the  alter- 
native of  either  depriving  Giotto  of  the  honor  of  being  the 
re-creator  of  painting,  and  conferring  it  on  Cavallini ;  or  of  sup- 
posing that  Giotto  was  the  real  author  of  these  mosaics,  Caval- 
lini merely  carrying  out  his  cartoons.  Now,  it  is  certain  that 
Cavallini  signed  and  dated  these  mosaics ;  the  words  Petrus 
fecit  hoc  opus  having  existed  in  part  until  recently.  Besides, 
the  analogies  are  not  identities.  They  are  instinct  with  a 
calm  and  dignity  that  is  less  akin  to  Giotto  than  to  the  Roman 
tradition  of  S.  Clemente,  where  Cavallini  also  found  the 
Hellenic   classicism   of   some   of  his   female   heads. 

Bat  where  Cavallini  shows  himself  in  perfect  freedom  of 
technique  and  stylistic  development  is  in  the  recently  dis- 
covered frescos  at  S.  Cecilia,  which  he  executed  in  about  1290. 
What  is  left  of  them  covers  the  inside  wall  of  the  apse  and 
laps  over  the  adjacent  walls  of  the  nave.  Originally  the  entire 
nave  was  decorated  with  Old  Testament  scenes  on  one  side  and 
New  Testament  scenes  on  the  other. 

The  composition  of  the  Last  Judgment  occupied  the  whole 
interior  of  the  facade.  The  figure  of  Christ  in  the  centre,  in  an 
aureole  surrounded  by  seraphs  and  angels,  is  flanked  by  the 
Virgin  and  John  the  Baptist,  standing,  and  by  the  seated  apos- 
tles, statuesque  figures,  with  a  strong  play  of  light  and  shade 
to  emphasize  the  antique  drapery.     They  are  as  if  consciously 


334  CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  MONUMENTS 

reproduced  from  Eoman  statues.  The  heads,  especially  that 
of  Christ  and  the  younger  apostles,  have  a  dignified  sweetness 
that  is  new  in  art.  In  them  the  more  physical  strength  and 
energy  embodied  by  the  artist  of  the  frescos  of  S.  Maria  Mag- 
giore  has  become  transformed  by  a  new  spiritual  grace.  In  the 
head  and  even  the  attitude  of  John  the  Baptist  there  is  an  ex- 
pression of  deepest  reverence  and  faith.  Below  the  throne  of 
Christ  is  the  altar  with  the  emblems  of  the  Passion.  Further 
below  is  a  part  of  the  scene  that  has  been  nearly  destroyed : 
the  elect  on  the  right  being  led  by  archangels  into  Paradise ; 
the  damned  on  the  left  being  thrust  into  hell-fire.  The  angels, 
in  the  wonderful  variety  of  the  coloring  of  their  wings,  their 
foreshortening,  the  realism  of  their  trumpeting,  the  ideality 
of  their  type,  are  an  extraordinary  creation.  The  entire 
composition  has  a  new  harmony,  richness  and  boldness  of 
coloring  that  is  missed  by  all  Cavallini's  successors,  including 
Giotto,  and  is  reconquered  only  by  the  Kenaissance.  Nothing 
at  Assisi  can  be  classed  with  such  works  as  these.  The  mo- 
saic of  the  Virgin  and  Child  at  S.  Crisogono  is  rather  weak 
for  him,  and  his  frescos  there  have  disappeared,  as  have  also 
those  with  which  he  covered  the  nave  of  S.  Paul. 

From  the  activity  of  Cavallini's  school  we  can  infer  that  of 
the  master  during  the  last  decade  of  the  thirteenth  century, 
but  nothing  has  been  saved  or  recovered  that  can  be  safely 
ascribed  to  him.  The  fresco  in  the  apse  of  S.  Giorgio  in 
Velabro,  painted  at  this  time,  may  have  been  his,  but  it  is 
repainted,  and  even  in  the  composition  there  is  little  to  mark 
it  as  Cavallini's,  because  the  artist  was  probably  obliged  to 
follow  the  traditional  composition  of  Roman  apses  that  places 
here  Christ  flanked  by  the  patrons  and  martyrs  of  the  Church. 

The  only  other  incontestable  work  is  one  belonging  to  his 
old  age:  the  frescos  of  S.  Maria  Donna  Regina  at  Naples. 
When  the  school  dispersed  with  the  departure  for  Avignon, 
Cavallini  went  to  Naples,  and  in  1308  and  the  subsequent 
years  we  find  him  receiving  an  annual  pension  of  thirty  ounces 
of  gold  from  King  Charles  II  of  Anjou.  In  all  probability  he 
was  not  alone  but  at  the  head  of  a  large  workshop,  if  not^.as 
large  as  the  one  in  Eome.     Since  the  recovery  of  the  S.  Cecilia 


PAINTING 


335 


frescos,  it  has  become  clear  that  in  the  decoration  of  S.  Maria 

Donna   llegina  we   have   three    hands :     Cavallini's    for   the 

great  scene  of  the  Last  Judgment  on  the  inner  wall   of  the 

faqade  and  the  scenes  from  the  Passion  in  the  upper  part  of 

the  nave ;    Cavallini's   pupils    in   the  choirs  of   angels  on  the 

triumphal   arch ;   a 

Sienese  master's  in 

the  scenes  from  the 

lives  of  the  saints 

{e.g.  S.  Elizabeth  of 

Hungary)     in     the 

lower   part  of   the 

nave.       It    seems 

doubtful,    as    we 

study    the    almost 

monochrom  atic 

effect  of  the  tones 

of    terracotta   with 

which    the    four 

superposed  tiers  tf 

Cavallini's     scenes 

are  treated,  whether 

this  work  was  ever 

completed. 

These  two  epic 
pages  of  the  Last 
Judgment  scene  in 
Rome  and  Xaples 
make  it  unusually 
easy,  from  the  unity 
of  their  theme,  to 
trace  the  change  in  Cavallini's  style  in  the  course  of  about 
twenty-five  years.  The  milder,  more  delicate  types  at  Naples 
are  due  to  broader  expanses  of  unbroken  tone,  a  greater  use  of 
whites  and  less  brush  and  line  work.  It  is  a  natural  develop- 
ment and  one  that  lessened  the  divergences  between  him  and 
Giotto,  whose  work  by  this  time  at  Rome,  Assisi,  Florence  and 
Padua  had  given  him  the  popular  primacy  in  painting. 


Giottesque  Crucifixion  at  S.  Saba. 


336  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

Giotto.  —  Giotto's  work  in  Rome  need  only  be  referred  to, 
because  though  he  received  his  artistic  education  in  Eonie  his 
style  was  so  much  his  own  as  to  place  him  outside  the  Roman 
school.  He  lived  and  worked  there  at  intervals  between 
c.  1285  and  1303,  alternating  with  his  work  at  Assisi  and 
in  Tuscany.  The  altar-piece  at  S.  Peter's  is  thought  by  most 
critics  to  be  one  of  his  early  Roman  productions,  though  a 
critic  has  recently  disputed  his  authorship.  The  "  Navicella," 
a  mosaic  representing  the  Bark  of  the  Church  weathering  the 
storms  and  Christ  saving  Peter  from  the  waves,  entirely  made 
over  during  the  Renaissance,  is  a  tribute  to  the  popularity  of 
mosaic  work  in  Rome  in  Giotto's  younger  days.  He  was 
probably  engaged  to  refresco  part  of  the  ancient  basilica  of 
S.  Peter,  but  made  only  a  small  beginning.  His  last  work 
was  also  one  of  the  very  last  works  of  art  executed  in  Rome 
before  the  departure  for  Avignon.  It  was  a  colossal  historic 
fresco  representation  of  the  proclamation  of  the  Papal  Jubilee 
of  1303  from  the  Lateran  Loggia  by  Pope  Boniface  VIII,  of 
which  a  small  fragment  remains. 

Torriti.  —  Even  while  Cavallini  was  resuscitating  the  art  of 
fresco-painting,  there  were  other  artists  in  Rome  who  were  more 
mosaicists  than  frescoists,  and  who  connected  themselves  rather 
with  the  Byzantine  than  with  the  antique  element  in  the 
Roman  school.  It  was  this  group  of  artists  that  influenced 
Cimabue.  They  were  magnificent  decorators  and  colorists,  but 
poor  story-tellers  and  not  yet  touched  with  the  life,  the  sense 
of  reality  and  dramatic  power  that  seethe  in  Cavallini.  The 
foremost  of  these  artists  was  Torriti. 

The  mosaic  in  the  apse  of  S.  John  Lateran  is  the  earlier  of 
the  two  Roman  masterpieces  of  Jacopo  Torriti,  and  was  com- 
pleted in  1291  with  the  assistance  of  Jacopo  da  Camerino,  the 
year  before  Cavallini  had  completed  his  Life  of  the  Virgin  at 
S.  Maria  in  Trastevere.  The  mosaic  that  we  see  is  modern  in 
its  execution,  as  the  present  apse  is  a  modern  construction, 
when  its  position  was  moved  back  at  the  time  of  the  recent 
restoration.  But  it  is  a  faithful  facsimile,  and  from  it  and 
from  early  photographs  I  feel  certain  that  Torriti  was  by  no 
means  the  creator  but  only  the  restorer  of  this  mosaic,  which 


PAINTING 


337 


in  some  parts,  notably  the  bust  of  Christ,  retained  the  work  of 
the  early  Christian  era  (fourth  to  fifth  century).  Above  is  a 
heavenly  sphere,  in  Avhich  the  bust  of  Christ,  overhung  by  a 
seraph  and  accompanied  by  eight  angels,  floats  in  the  clouds. 
Below  is  the  church  on  earth.  In  the  centre,  on  the  sacred 
mount,  rises  the  Cross,  on  which  the  Holy  Spirit  is  descending 
from  the  Divine  Christ.  The  four  rivers  flow  from  it,  and 
deer  and  lambs  drink  at  their  sources,  while  in  and  about  their 


Apse  Mosaic  of  S.  John  Lateran  (Reconstructed). 
(Fourth  to  thirteenth  centuries.) 

united  waters  play  a  multitude  of  fishes,  birds,  animals  and 
genii.  On  the  flowery  background  stand  the  saints ;  on  the 
right  the  Virgin,  S.  Peter  and  S.  Paul ;  on  the  left  John  the 
Baptist,  John  the  Evangelist  and  S.  Andrew.  These  figures 
are  regularly  spaced,  so  that  an  awkward  effect  is  produced  by 
the  insertion,  on  one  side  of  S.  Francis  of  Assisi,  between  the 
Virgin  and  S.  Peter,  and  on  the  other  of  S.  Antony  of  Padua 
on  a  far  smaller  scale.  In  the  same  fashion  the  small  figure 
of  Pope  Nicholas  IV  is  placed,  kneeling,  at  the  feet  of  the 
Virgin.  A  peremptory  proof  that  these  three  small  figures 
were  added  to  a  previously  existing  mosaic  is  given  by  the 
figure  of  the  Virgin.     Her  right  hand  was  originally  raised^ 


338  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

like  that  of  the  other  figures,  as  is  shown  by  the  folds  of 
drapery,  but  Torriti  when  he  placed  the  Pope  at  her  feet, 
brought  her  right  arm  down  so  as  to  rest  her  hand  on  his  head, 
though  leaving  the  telltale  drapery.  Undoubtedly  Torriti 
restored  the  larger  figures,  but  they  belong  to  a  far  earlier 
master,  a  Byzantine  artist  (Andrew  is  entirely  modern).  The 
angels  above  are  Torriti's.  The  charming  scene  of  the 
terrestrial  paradise  goes   back,   like   the   bust  of    Christ,  to 


Apse  Mosaic  of  S.  Maria  Maggiore. 
(Fourth  to  thirteenth  centuries.) 

the  early  Christian  age.  Below  this  large  scene,  between  the 
windows,  are  the  figures  of  nine  apostles,  standing  between 
palm-trees.  All  this  work  at  the  Lateran  has  been  so  mod- 
ernized that  we  must  turn  to  Torriti's  later  activity  at  S. 
Maria  Maggiore  for  an  appreciation  of  his  style. 

Planned  by  Nicholas  TV  and  the  two  Colonna  cardinals,  the 
mosaics  of  the  facade  and  apse  of  S.  Maria  Maggiore  were 
carried  out  by  several  artists :  Jacopo  Torriti,  Filippo  Ru- 
sutti  and  Gaddo  Gaddi,  and  are  important  works  of  unequal 
merit  and  charm.  The  work  commenced  in  the  apse  under 
the  direction  of  Torriti,  by  whom  it  was  completed  in  1-295. 
I  agree  with  Mlintz  in  regarding  the  main  composition  as  by 


PAINTING  339 

no  means  entirely  of  the  time  of  Torriti.  This  artist  retained 
the  old  fourth  (or  fifth)  century  mosaic  that  still  existed  as  a 
framework  for  his  work.  The  decoration  was  then  purely 
ornamental,  without  figures,  an  immense  scroll-pattern  of  the 
Vine,  imwinding  its  symbolic  spirals  over  the  entire  semi- 
dome.  Cutting  out  the  centre  and  the  lower  section  of  these 
spirals,  Torriti  placed  there :  above,  a  large  starry  sphere  al- 
most filled  by  a  cushioned  throne  on  which  are  seated,  side 
by  side,  Christ  and  the  Virgin  whom  He  is  crowning.  On 
either -side  and  below,  are  choirs  of  adoring  angels  on  a  much 
smaller  scale.  Beneath,  midway  in  size,  is  a  line  of  figures 
stretching  across  the  apse.  On  the  right  S.  Peter,  S.  Paul 
and  S.  Francis,  with  the  kneeling  Pope,  Nicholas  IV;  on  the 
left,  John  the  Baptist,  John  the  Evangelist  and  S.  Antony, 
with  the  kneeling  figure  of  Cardinal  Giacomo  Colonna,  who 
paid  for  the  work.  It  is  easy  to  see  how  unnaturally  Torriti 
w^as  obliged  to  twist  and  terminate  the  antique  spirals  in  order 
to  insert  his  figures. 

Below,  between  the  windows,  are  five  small  compositions 
from  the  Life  of  the  Virgin,  similar  to  those  at  S.  Maria  in 
Trastevere.  They  are :  Annunciation,  Nativity,  Adoration  of 
the  Magi,  Presentation  in  the  Temple,  Death  of  the  Virgin  (in 
the  centre).  A  comparison  between  this  and  the  similar  frieze 
at  S.  Maria  in  Trastevere  is  interesting  as  demonstrating  bet- 
ter than  anything  how  Torriti  represented  the  fine  flower  of 
Byzantine  color-sense  and  skill  in  decorative  design,  trans- 
fused by  the  influence  of  the  antique  decorative  elements  in 
the  Roman  school,  while  Cavallini,  disdaining  the  less  funda- 
mental elements  of  art,  reached  put  for  the  expression  of  life, 
character  and  thought  in  the  figures.  Torriti  charms  our 
aesthetic  sense ;  Cavallini  grips  our  dramatic  and  religious 
sense.  Torriti  stands  at  the  summit  of  the  receding  wave  of 
art,  delicate  but  lifeless;  Cavallini  leads  the  charge  of  the 
new-born  breakers,  instinct  with  life. 

On  the  facade  of  S.  Maria  Maggiore  the  mosaics  are  both 
badly  restored  and  by  artists  inferior  to  Torriti.  The  main 
central  scene,  on  a  large  scale,  has  the  figure  of  the  enthroned 
Christ  in  an  aureole  accompanied  by  angels  and  evangelists  j 


340  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

below  is  a  row  of  eight  saints.  This  work  is  signed  by  a 
Koman  artist  named  Filippo  Rusutti.  The  scenes  below  refer 
to  the  legends  of  the  founding  of  the  basilica :  the  visions  of 
Pope  Liberius  and  of  the  Patricias,  the  miracle  of  the  summer 
fall  of  snow  that  gave  its  mediaeval  name  to  the  basilica  of  S. 
Maria  ad  nives,  and  the  miraculous  indication  of  the  site  for 
the  new  church.  A  number  of  small  works  have  escaped  the 
fate  of  the  more  extensive  wall-paintings.  This  is  especially 
the  case  with  the  frescos  and  mosaics  protected  by  the  cano- 
pies of  the  tombs.  To  Torriti  and  Giovanni  Cosmati  are 
assigned  those  of  the  tombs  of  Matteo  d'  Acquasparta,  Gon- 
zalvo,  Durand,  etc.,  dating  c.  1300.  Of  similar  style  is  a 
lunette  over  the  side  door  of  S.  Maria  in  Aracoeli,  and  a 
somewhat  larger  mosaic  of  the  Colonna  chapel.  These  are 
all  school  pieces. 

Until  the  very  close  of  its  history  Eoman  painting  reflects, 
therefore,  the  two  currents  —  classic  and  Byzantine.  At  the 
close  the  classic  element,  led  by  Cavallini,  became  paramount 
because  of  the  newly  awakened  national  spirit  of  Italy,  which 
was  showing  itself  in  painting  after  having  been  embodied  in 
every  other  form  of  culture.  The  painters  who  drifted  from 
Rome  to  Naples,  to  Avignon  and  France,  to  Umbria  and  Tus- 
cany, became  more  and  more  subjugated  by  the  Giottesque  ver- 
sion of  the  parent  school.  Rome  itself  has  a  number  of  such 
works  that  have  been  only  slightly  studied ;  some  seem  even 
to  be  unknown,  like  the  supei'b  scene  in  the  monastery  of  S. 
Sisto.  Thus,  in  the  hour  of  the  dispersal  of  the  school,  as  its 
members  moved  north  and  south,  they  helped  to  spread  the 
new  Romano-Giottesque  style. 

I  cannot  close  this  chapter  without  referring  again  to  the  As- 
sisi  frescos,  because  they  not  only  epitomize  the  activity  of  the 
Roman  school  during  its  last  half-century,  but  also  illustrate 
this  passing  on  of  the  torch  to  the  Tuscan  artists  of  Florence 
and  Siena.  The  Upper  Church  was  undoubtedly  not  only  the 
first  to  have  its  pictorial  decoration  planned,  but  the  more 
important  in  regard  to  its  subjects.  The  decoration  com- 
menced in  the  apse  and  transepts.  This  part  is  in  such  deplor- 
able condition  that  no  judgment  can  be  given  of  its  color  scheme 


PAINTING  341 

or  technique;  of  anything,  in  fact,  but  the  themes,  composition 
and  line  effects.  The  Roman  scheme  was  followed  of  giving 
here  the  dogmatic  subjects  and  those  taken  from  the  Apoca- 
lypse, as  illustrating  the  Spiritual  Church.  In  both  transepts 
the  series  culminates  in  an  idealized  Crucifixion,  the  basis  and 
foundation  for  the  church  on  earth,  which  is  to  be  illustrated 
in  the  nave.  There  is  a  wealth  of  ideas  in  these  compositions 
with  their  numerous  figures  and  occasional  dramatic  force, 
which  points  to  a  master  like  Cavallini,  whose  earliest  known 
works  they  would  be.  But  here,  as  in  the  nave,  we  would 
recognize  undoubtedly  the  hands  of  several  artists  if  the  fres- 
cos were  less  damaged. 

In  the  nave  the  usual  Roman  scheme  was  followed.  The 
Old  Testament  is  illustrated  by  sixteen  scenes  on  one  side,, 
covering  the  upper  part  of  the  wall,  under  the  vaults ;  and  the 
same  number  illustrate  the  New  Testament  on  the  opposite  side. 
Evangelists,  prophets  and  Fathers  of  the  Church  fill  the  vaults; 
one  figure  in  each  vaulting  compartment.  This  part  was  ap- 
parently planned  by  the  same  master  who  directed  the  work 
in  choir  and  transept,  though  it  would  be  too  bold  to  affirm 
this  positively.  What  is  perfectly  clear  is  that  as  many  as 
five  or  six,  if  not  more,  painters  were  actually  engaged  in  carry- 
ing out  the  master's  designs,  at  about  the  same  time.  Of  these 
men  at  least  three  show  absolutely  distinct,  almost  diametri- 
cally opposed  manners :  (a)  the  dramatic  author  of  the  Sacri- 
fice of  Abraham,  a  master  of  linear  power;  (6)  the  quiet  but 
intense  painter  of  the  Blessing  of  Isaac,  with  his  mastery  of 
drapery  and  story-telling;  (c)  the  decorative  master  of  the 
vault  of  the  four  evangelists,  lacking  in  the  sense  of  life  and 
over-fond  of  clumsy  accessories.  These  and  the  rest  were  Ro- 
man masters,  all  of  whom  betray  the  desire  to  attain  to  natu- 
ralness, each  in  his  own  way.  Such  scenes  as  those  of  the 
Passion  on  the  opposite  (left)  wall  show  that  one  of  these  ways 
was  through  the  reproduction  of  the  ugliness  of  the  types 
of  the  common  people.  The  individuality  shown  by  these 
various  painters  belonging  to  the  school  of  Cavallini  is  quite 
remarkable ;  it  is  greater  than  will  be  the  case  during  the  two 
succeeding  generations  of  the  followers  of  Giotto. 


342  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

An  effect  of  greater  unity  is  produced  by  the  line  of  twenty- 
eight  scenes  from  the  life  of  S.  Francis,  which  were  placed 
beneath  these  Bible  scenes  on  both  walls.  They  are  usually 
attributed  to  Giotto  who,  after  having  served  his  apprentice- 
ship among  the  painters  of  the  Bible  scenes,  was  given  full 
direction  of  the  later  series  below.  It  may  be  doubted,  how- 
ever, whether  the  compositions  nearest  the  transept  are  not 
maturer  works  of  Cavallini  himself,  the  series  being  completed 
by  his  greatest  pupil,  Giotto.^ 

It  is  through  this  Bible  series  that  it  is  possible  to  connect 
still  closer  the  Roman  and  Tuscan  schools  in  Florence  itself. 
At  the  Baptistery  the  mosaic  decoration  commenced  in  1225, 
in  the  apse,  by  a  Roman  painter  named  Jacobus,  was  later 
extended  to  the  dome  in  a  most  elaborate  series  of  Bible  stories 
culminating  in  the  Last  Judgment,  the  execution  of  which  was 
continued  into  the  fourteenth  century.  While  Byzantine  mo- 
saicists  apparently  were  put  in  charge  of  the  colossal  composi 
tion  of  the  Last  Judgment,  we  are  able  to  see,  by  comparison 
with  the  frescos  in  the  nave  at  Assisi,  that  the  Roman  mosaicists 
of  the  close  of  the  thirteenth  century  were  responsible  for  a 
considerable  portion  of  the  Bible  stories.  Perhaps  it  was  in 
Florence,  therefore,  that  the  Roman  school  of  mosaic-painting 
ended  its  days,  in  the  home  of  Cimabue  and  Giotto. 

1  The  decoration  of  the  Lower  Church  was  at  first  sporadic.  This  is  shown 
by  the  famous  Madonna  fresco  by  Cimabue,  which  was  painted  previous  to  any 
general  scheme,  and  afterwards  worked  into  the  design  of  the  Giottesque  age. 


^ 


ROMAN  ARTISTS 

Can  anything  be  said  of  the  personality,  social  condition 
and  methods  of  the  artists  who  worked  in  Rome  during  these 
centuries  ?  I  have  already  described  their  condition  during  the 
Roman  decadence,  when  individuality  was  killed  by  the  tyranny 
of  imperial  guilds  and  labor  unions.  The  guilds  were  then 
supplemented  or  succeeded  by  the  monasteries,  and  only  a  few 
individuals,  such  as  Agatho  and  Januarius,  emerge. 

There  is  a  striking  contrast  between  Byzantine  and  medi- 
aeval Rome  in  the  personality  of  its  artists.  Between  the 
sixth  and  the  eleventh  centuries  hardly  a  single  lay  artist  can 
be  mentioned,  while  numerous  indications  lead  us  to  infer  that 
it  was  in  the  monasteries  that  we  must  look  for  artists  of  all 
kinds.  When  the  revival  commenced  at  the  close  of  the 
eleventh  century,  Rome  was  not  an  exception  in  Italy,  but 
joined  the  other  provinces  in  wresting  art  from  the  hands  of 
the  Benedictine  and  Greek  monks  and  in  establishing  lay 
guilds  and  ateliers  after  the  Lombard  fashion. 

The  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries  saw  the  development 
of  art  under  the  auspices  of  these  local  schools  throughout 
Italy.  It  was  only  after  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century 
that  the  monks,  represented  by  the  new  orders  of  S.  Francis 
and  S.  Dominic,  succeeded  in  partly  reestablishing  their  hold 
on  the  Fine  Arts  and  in  working  side  by  side  with  the  lay 
artists. 

Guilds.  —  In  most  Italian  cities  the  artists  joined  a  guild, 
such  as  that  of  the  masons  or  stone-cutters,  or  of  the  painters, 
and  the  character  of  their  unions  is  shown  by  many  mediaeval 
documents  in  which  their  constitution  and  organization,  their 
membership  and  history  are  illustrated.  This  was  the  case  in 
Siena,  Florence,  Bologna  and  many  other  cities.  In  Rome  the 
case  is  not  quite  so  clear ;  yet  it  would  seem  as  if  there  were  a 

343 


344  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

guild  of  marmorarii  which  included  all  artists  whether  archi- 
tects, decorators,  stone-cutters  or  mosaicists.  Guilds  had 
always  existed  in  the  eternal  city.  The  monopolistic  unions 
of  the  imperial  age  had  never  been  wiped  out,  even  by 
the  Gothic  wars.  Under  the  denomination  of  SchoJce  the 
population  of  Eome  had  been,  as  we  have  seen,  carefully 
divided  and  organized  according  to  occupations  and  nationali- 
ties in  the  early  Middle  Ages.  As  in  other*  mediaeval  cities 
each  industry  was  assigned  to  a  street  or  quarter  and  there 
lived  and  worked  in  compact  homogeneous  groups,  each  with 
its  church  and  its  guild-hall  or  Schola. 

But  in  Eome  there  was  an  even  closer  bond  between  certain 
smaller  groups  of  artists.  It  is  known  how  the  unions  of  the 
late  Empire  had  been  tyrannically  dealt  with  by  the  govern- 
ment: their  occupation  and  membership  made  forcibly  heredi- 
tary, so  that  the  son  could  have  no  other  occupation  than  that 
of  his  father ;  their  residence  in  a  single  city  also  obligatory, 
so  that  if  an  artisan  went  to  work  in  another  city,  he  could  be 
brought  back  by  force  ;  the  association  itself,  in  return  for  the 
privilege  of  monopoly,  obliged  to  give  free  service  to  the 
State  for  all  public  works.  Of  course,  with  the  decay  and 
obliteration  of  imperial  authority  the  enforcement  of  these 
conditions  ceased.  Service  to  the  State  remained  in  force,  it 
is  true,  in  Northern  Italy  and  Venice,  where  centralized  civil 
authority  had  never  suffered  an  eclipse,  but  in  Rome  it  could 
not  be  enforced  by  the  Papacy.  Gregory  the  Great  sought  to 
enforce  the  law  of  residence,  but  even  that  was  a  dead  letter. 

Families  of  Artists.  —  As  for  the  third  condition,  that  of 
hereditary  occupation,  it  is  curious  to  see  how  it  survived  even 
though  the  fact  that  the  arts  were  monopolized  from  the  sixth 
to  the  eleventh  centuries  ,by  the  celibate  monks  would  seem  to 
have  given  a  death-blow  to  the  hereditary  habit  in  art.  The 
reason  is  that  in  connection  with  the  great  monasteries  were 
art  schools  and  villages  of  artisans,  where  the  people  were  the 
serfs  or  liegemen  of  the  monasteries,  from  father  to  son,  and 
from  these  obscure  artisans,  who  preserved  the  hereditary  habit, 
sprang,  in  many  cases,  the  material  from  which  the  labor  and 
art  guilds  were  formed  after  the  eleventh  century. 


ROMAN   ARTISTS  345 

At  all  events  the  Roman  school  of  lay  artists,  from  the  time 
of  its  reorganization  in  c.  1100  a.d.,  appears  to  consist  of  a  few 
family  groups,  constituting  special  art-schools  whose  traditions 
and  clientele  were  handed  down  through  several  generations. 
They  worked  not  only  in  Kome  itself,  but  throughout  the  prov- 
ince, in  cities,  towns  and  monasteries,  but  having  probably  one 
central  workshop  in  Rome.  Among  the  many  signed  works 
there  is  a  large  proportion  where  father  and  son  worked  to- 
gether and  take  joint  credit,  and  quite  a  number  signed  by 
brothers.  When  the  work  of  completely  constructing  and  dec- 
orating a  single  one  of  the  churches  of  this  period  in  the  char- 
acteristic mediaeval  Roman  style,  with  its  various  accessories  of 
tower,  cloister,  monastery,  church  furniture  and  monuments,  is 
reckoned  up,  and  this  activity  is  multiplied  by  the  hundreds  of 
such  churches  built  or  decorated  in  Rome  and  its  province  dur- 
ing these  two  centuries,  it  is  evident  that  we  must  look  upon 
the  Roman  school  as  an  exceedingly  active  and  aggressive  ag- 
glomeration of  a  few  large  workshops  each  under  a  head  master, 
swarming  with  younger  artists  and  apprentices,  all  under  the 
direction  of  the  head  of  the  family  and  his  sons. 

Workshops  and  Studios.  —  These  workshops  were  often  estab- 
lished in  or  near  important  ruinous  buildings  of  the  ancient 
city  where  there  was  a  large  supply  of  the  fine  marbles,  the 
columns,  pavements,  revetments,  sculptured  details  that  were 
required  for  materials  and  models  and  where  lime-kilns  could 
be  established  conveniently.  We  may  be  allowed  to  conclude 
that  there  were  several  departments  to  these  large  establish- 
ments. The  Roman  master  artist  was  usually  a  man  of  even 
broader  artistic  education  and  technical  ability  than  the  aver- 
age always  broadly  educated  mediaeval  artist.  He  was  obliged 
to  be  a  designer  of  buildings  and  of  details,  a  sculptor  and  a 
practical  decorator.  He  designed  also  the  church  furniture 
and  monuments,  and  executed  the  mosaic  inlay  with  which 
they  were  usually  decorated.  In  his  workshop  there  must 
have  been  a  section  for  mosaic  work  with  furnaces  for  melting 
the  glass,  making  the  plaster,  sorting  the  cubes  and  preparing 
the  gold.  There  must  have  been  offices  for  the  preparation  of 
sketches,  cartoons,  models  or  other  preliminary  work ;  and  of 


346  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

course  the  stone-cutters'  department  and  that  for  figure  carving. 
It  is  quite  possible  that  there  was  also  a  department  for  wall- 
painting,  as  all  the  churches  of  this  period  were  more  or  less 
thoroughly  frescoed,  and  we  know  that  in  more  than  one  case  a 
mosaicist  and  decorator  was  also  a  painter. 

Often  in  quite  small  monuments  nearly  all  these  sections 
were  called  upon  to  take  a  hand.  In  a  ciborium  or  a  sepulchral 
monument,  the  sculptor,  the  mosaicist,  the  decorator  and  some- 
times the  painter  collaborated.  In  connection  with  the  sculp- 
tor's workshop  there  were  often  collections  of  models,  including 
even  antique  statues.  A  statue  of  ^sculapius,  for  instance,  was 
copied  and  signed  by  one  of  the  Yassalletti  and  found  in  the 
ruins  of  his  family  workshop.  At  the  Lateran  Cloister,  Vas- 
sallettus  copied  sphinxes,  probably  from  the  Isseum.  The  work 
at  S.  Lorenzo  and  at  the  cathedral  of  Civita  Castellana  is  ac- 
curately classic.  The  finest  capitals,  cornices  and  friezes  from 
the  ancient  buildings  were  set  up  for  study,  and  the  work  of 
the  school  shows  that  its  artists  knew  how  to  select  good 
models,  rejecting  the  products  of  the  later  Empire. 

It  is  to  this  universal  talent,  this  aggregation  collected  under 
one  roof  and  one  master-hand,  that  we  owe  the  unity  and  har- 
mony of  the  school's  work,  which,  had  it  not  been  so  almost 
universally  and  hideously  marred  by  the  barbarous  church- 
men of  the  Barocco  period,  would  have  given  us  in  its  way  as 
wonderful  a  picture  as  that  of  some  of  the  untouched  French 
Gothic  cathedrals. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  high  grade  of  organization 
and  workmanship  was  easily  attained.  Almost  the  entire 
twelfth  century  was  consumed  in  a  steady,  slow  advance. 
Neither  did  the  existence  of  the  family  schools  exclude  the 
collaboration  of  artists  not  belonging  to  the  same  family. 
Drudus  de  Trivio,  for  example,  was  an  apprentice  and  junior 
member  in  the  school  of  Laurentius. 

Work  for  the  Province.  —  In  these  workshops  were  prepared 
not  only  the  works  destined  for  the  churches  of  Rome  itself, 
but  part  of  those  executed  for  tlie  churches  throughout  the 
province.  It  was  comparatively  easy  to  forward  them  to  their 
destination  on  wagons  over  the  excellent  Koman  roads.     It"  is 


ROMAN  ARTISTS  347 

interesting  in  this  connection  to  note  that  the  works  of  the 
school  are  far  more  numerous  in  the  towns  that  are  easily  ac- 
cessible from  the  Roman  roads  or  directly  on  them  than  in 
the  remoter  towns,  showing  that  it  was  not  easy  to  execute 
works  of  importance  on  the  spot  without  the  transfer  of  a 
large  force. 

It  was  not  only  small  articles  of  church  furniture,  ciboriums, 
sepulchral  monuments  and  the  like,  that  were  executed  in 
Rome  for  the  province,  but  even  large  architectural  works,  such 
as  the  doorways  or  rose  windows  of  church  facades  and  even 
entire  cloisters.  The  parts  were  all  carefully  marked  so  that 
the  work  could  be  set  up  without  difficulty  either  by  the  artist 
himself  accompanying  his  material  or  by  local  craftsmen.  This 
was,  for  instance,  the  case  with  part  at  least  of  the  cloister  at 
Subiaco,  the  earlier  part  executed  by  Jacobus,  son  of  Lauren- 
tius,  in  about  1200.  I  noted  there  that  not  only  each  base, 
shaft  and  capital,  but  all  the  stones  of  the  piers  and  arcades 
were  carefully  numbered  or  marked. 

Were  they  Architects  ?  —  It  is  a  matter  of  dispute  whether  the 
Roman  marmorarii  were  also  architects  in  the  strict  sense ;  that 
is,  whether  they  also  planned  and  constructed  the  buildings 
they  decorated. 

Now,  in  Rome  itself  the  construction  of  churches  was  not  a 
matter  of  much  consequence  or  artistic  interest.  None  of  the 
mathematical  knowledge,  none  of  the  traditional  technique, 
none  of  the  trained  handling  of  materials  were  required  that 
raised  the  builders  of  the  North  to  a  high  pinnacle  of  artistry. 
The  walls  of  the  churches  were  a  thin  and  plain  brick  screen 
perforated  with  perfectly  plain  unmoulded  apertures  for  win- 
dows. We  may  grant,  as  we  examine  the  body  of  a  Roman 
church,  that  there  was  no  art  in  this  business  of  brick-laying, 
and  that  it  was  outside  the  province  of  the  marmorani.  So 
plain  was  the  brick-work  that  the  apses,  for  instance,  were  not 
decorated  even  with  the  lines  of  false  arcades  so  common  else- 
where as  the  simplest  form  of  ornament.  To  diversify  this 
meaij^reness  came  the  mosaicists  who  covered  the  upper  part  of 
the  facade  and  sometimes  the  outer  face  of  the  apse  with  mo- 
saic pictures.     Then  came  especially  the  mai'morarii  to  fill  the 


348  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

windows  with  thin  slabs  of  marble  and  alabaster  cut  in  open- 
work patterns;  to  set  in  marble  doors  with  their  columns, 
resting  often  on  lions ;  and  to  cover  the  lower  part  of  the 
faQade  with  the  long  portico. 

Probably  the  mechanical  work  of  building  belonged  in  Rome 
to  a  different  art  guild,  and  not  to  that  to  which  our  artists,  the 
marmorarii,  belonged.  Whatever  the  name  of  the  builder's 
guild  may  have  been  in  Rome,  its  members  appear  to  have 
been  called  m^u^atores,  the  ancestor  of  the  common  modern 
Italian  term  for  them  (muratori).  Thus  we  find  one  of  them 
as  a  witness  to  a  deed  in  1200  :  Magister  Ralnucius,  murator,  — 
evidently  a  master-builder,  not  a  common  laborer.  Whereas 
in  a  contemporary  deed  of  1193  we  vesid  Alexius,  7narmdrarius, 
an  ordinary  member  of  the  guild  of  marmorarii,  not  a  master 
in  it  such  as  the  men  wht)se  names  we  see  on  the  monuments. 

Another  class  of  artist  who  may  also  have  belonged  to  the 
same  guild  as  the  muratores,  are  the  fabricatores,  who  were 
possibly  the  magistri  of  the  guild  of  masons.  There  is  one 
case  of  the  signature  of  an  architect-stone-mason,  where  the 
genealogy  is  given  to  the  fourth  generation,  presumably  from 
generations  of  artists.  It  is  the  inscription  recording  the 
construction  of  the  great  Capitoline  stairway,  unique  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  leading  up  tp  S.  Maria  in  Aracoeli,  built  in  1348, 
after  the  great  plague,  by  order  of  Cola  di  Rienzo.  Its  archi- 
tect was  Lorenzo,  of  whom  the  inscription  says  :  — 

MAGISTER    .    LAURENTIUS    .    SIMEONI    .    ANDREOTII 
CAROLI    .    FABRICATOR    .    DE    .    ROME    .    DE    .    REGIONE 
COLUMPNE    .    FUNDAVIT    .    PROSECUTUS    .    EST 
ET    .    COXSUMAVIT    .    UT    .    PRINCIPALIS    .    MAGISTER 
HOC    .    OPUS    .    SCALARUM    .    IXCEPTUM    .    AXXO 
DOMINI    .    ANN    .    MCCCXLVIII    .    DIE    .    XXV    .    OCTOBRIS 

It  is  when  we  turn  from  the  church  itself,  an  inheritance 
from  earlier  days,  to  the  more  characteristically  mediaeval  struc- 
ture of  bell-towers  and  cloisters,  described  in  previous  chapters, 
that  we  see  how  intimately  the  work  of  the  bricklayer  was  in- 
terwoven with  that  of  the  other  arts,  and  to  feel  that  probably 
the  master  of.  the  works,  magister  fabricce,  was   to  be   found 


ROMAN  ARTISTS  349 

among  the  marmorarii ;  Siud  that  in  such  cases  the  artists  we 
are  to  study  had  complete  control.  One  might  be  tempted  to 
attribute  this  position  to  the  Lombard  architects  who  were  so 
prominent  throughout  Italy,  both  north  and  south,  if  it  were 
not  that  not  a  single  inscription  records  such  an  architect  in 
Kome  itself  and  none  undoubtedly  of  this  character  even  in  the 
province. 

Who  were  some  of  the  artists  who  presided  over  the  large 
workshops  that  supplied  Rome  and  the  province  with  all  its 
art?  A  large  number  of  artists,  known  to  have  worked  in 
Kome  between  1000  and  1300  a.d.,  could  be  named,  but  instead 
of  a  catalogue,  useful  merely  to  a  specialist,  only  the  men  who 
stood  in  the  front  rank  need  be  mentioned  here.  Earliest  of 
all  the  sculptors  was  Christianus,  who  erected  a  cardinal's 
tomb  in  S.  Prassede  just  before  1000. 

Early  Painters.  —  But  the  most  prominent  Roman  artists  of 
this  and  the  next  century  were  probably  the  fresco-painters, 
who  developed  a  grand  style. 

Such  were  the  two  brothers  John  and  Stephen,  and  their 
nephew  Nicholas,  who  decorated  S.  Elia  near  Nepi ;  Heraclius, 
who  wrote  a  handbook  of  painting  that  has  been  preserved ; 
John,  who  accompanied  Otho  III  to  Germany.  More  than  a 
century  later  we  hear  of  Guido  and  Petrolinus  as  painters  for 
Paschal  II  at  the  SS.  Quattro  Coronati  and  other  churches,  and 
a  little  later,  of  the  painters  who  signed  the  martyrdom 
scenes  at  S.  Agnese.  One  of  the  painters,  Bentivenga,  was  even 
honored  by  the  senatorship,  in  1148,  showing  that  it  was  not 
then  impossible  for  artists  to  reach  social  and  political  distinc- 
tion in  Rome. 

Foreign  Artists.  — All  of  them  are  not  of  Roman  parentage. 
Several  artists  of  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries  have 
names  that  are  evidently  Lombard,  such  as  Gislebertus,  who 
worked  at  S.  Cecilia  and  three  other  churches ;  Obertus,  who 
made  the  enamelled  shrine  for  the  confession  of  S.  Peter,  and 
the  door  at  the  Lateran  basilica  ;  Azo,  who  also  worked  in  the 
Vatican  basilica.  Johannes,  a  Venetian  sculptor,  carved  the 
doorway  at  S.  Maria  in  Cosmedin.  Certain  branches  of  art  in- 
dustry were  so  much  the  specialty  of  a  certain  school  that  their 


350  CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  MONUMENTS 

works  went  everywhere.  Bell-casting,  for  example,  was  such 
a  specialty  of  the  Pisan  school ;  and  the  oldest  bells  in  the 
Roman  campanili  were  cast  by  Pisans,  such  as  that  of  S.  Maria 
Maggiore  by  Guidoctus  Pisanus  and  his  son  Andreas.  But 
these  foreigners  did  not  in  the  least  affect  the  characteristics 
of  the  school,  which  was  a  product  of  the  native  soil,  and  owed 
but  little  to  any  but  Byzantine  and  Campanian  sources. 

School  of  Paulus.  —  It  was  under  Pope  Paschal  II  that  the 
school  began,  under  his  guidance,  the  work  of  reconstructing 
and  redecorating  the  city  after  Guiscard's  fire.  The  main  glory 
of  leadership  must  be  given  to  an  artist  who  signs  himself 
Paulus,  and  who  founded  the  first  of  these  schools  of  combined 
architects,  sculptors,  decorators,  and  mosaicists  of  which  we 
have  any  record.  It  was  continued  unto  the  fourth  generation 
for  three-quarters  of  a  century.  He  had  charge  of  making  the 
pavement  and  choir-seats  of  the  Vatican  basilica,  of  which  only 
insignificant  fragments  remain  in  the  crypt.  His  earliest  dated 
decorative  work  and  that  of  which  most  remains  is  the  pave- 
ment, and  choir-screen,  choir-seats  and  ambone  in  the  cathedral 
of  Ferentino,  which  he  executed  between  1106  and  1110,  and 
will  be  described  elsewhere. 

Immediately  after  came  the  reconstruction,  in  1112,  of  SS. 
Quattro  Coronati  in  Rome,  where,  though  his  signature  has 
perished,  his  hand  is  unmistakable  in  the  scattered  decoration 
of  the  interior  and  in  the  interesting  cloister.  Equally  clear  is 
it  that  he  had  charge,  under  the  direction  of  Alfanus,  ten  years 
later,  of  the  work  at  S.  Maria  in  Cosmedin.  Paulus  died  before 
the  middle  of  the  century,  leaving  four  sons  who  had  long  been 
trained  to  continue  his  style.  Johannes  was  the  elder ;  the 
others  were  Petrus,  Angelus  and  Sasso. 

It  was  to  this  family  school  that  was  confided  the  decora- 
tion of  S.  Lorenzo-fuori-le-mura,  with  its  ciborium,  pulpits, 
choir-screen,  etc.,  which  was  partly  destroyed  by  Honorius  III 
in  c.  1217.  The  inscription  on  the  ciborium  gives  the  date 
1147  and  their  names:  — 

JOHANXES  PETRUS  ANGELUS  ET 

SASSO  FILTI  PAULI  MARMORARII  y 

HUIUS  OPERIS  MAGISTRI  FUERUNT.  *' 


ROMAN  ARTISTS  351 

The  next  year  the  same  brothers  —  except  Petrus  —  were 
given  similar  work  at  S.  Croce  in  Gerusalemme,  where  they 
signed  the  ciborium  Johannes  de  Paulo  cum  fratribus  suis  An- 
gelo  et  Sasso  huius  operis  magistri  fuerunt.  A  few  years 
later  they  repeated  these  works  at  S.  Marco  and  SS.  Cosma  e 
Damiano  (1153-1154). 

The  son  of  one  of  these  brothers,  Nicolaus,  son  of  Angelas, 
rose  to  as  great  eminence  as  his  grandfather,  between  1160  and 
1180,  advancing  far  beyond  the  level  of  his  father  and  uncles 
and  employing  glass  and  paste  mosaic  cubes  very  largely  in 
place  of  the  larger  marble  cubes,  thus  gaining  a  delicacy  and 
brilliancy  for  his  work  and  increasing  very  considerably  the 
proportion  of  decorative  design  over  the  plain  surfaces.  In 
this  he  was  helped  by  Jacobus,  son  of  Laurentius  —  of  whom 
more  later  —  who  revolutionized  the  art  of  mosaic  decoration 
in  the  school.  It  is,  in  fact,  interesting  to  note  that  Nicolaus 
took  as  his  associates  the  principal  members  of  the  two  other 
leading  artist- families  in  Rome.  He  had  the  son  of  Lauren- 
tius help  him  make  the  choir-screen  at  S.  Bartolommeo  alP 
Isola  in  1180,  that  artist's  share  being  the  nineteen  columns 
with  their  capitals  that  formed  the  open  second  story  of  the 
iconostasis  stretching  across  the  church.  This  is  expressed 
in  the  signature:  Nicolaus  de  Angela  fecit  hoc  opus.  Jaco- 
bus Laurentii  fecit  has  XIX  columnas  cum  capitellis  suis. 
Two  of  these  columns  have  been  saved  and  are  now  at  S.  Ales- 
sio  —  the  most  exquisite  of  their  class  ever  done.  Then,  in 
the  very  different  work  of  the  carved  paschal  candlestick  of 
S.  Paolo,  he  was  assisted  by  Petrus  Vassallettus,  whose  family 
school  was  always  more  skilf\d  in  sculpture  than  the  others. 

The  most  considerable  work  by  Nicolaus  was  probably  the 
great  portico  of  the  Lateran  basilica,  due  to  him  alone.  Part 
of  its  columns  and  architrave  were  incorporated  in  the  pres- 
ent Barocco  porch,  where  they  are  lost.  The  original  porch 
had  an  elaborate  mosaic  frieze  and  was  signed :  Nicolaus  An- 
geli  fecit  hoc  opus.  The  mosaic  compositions  decorating 
the  frieze  were  traced  before  their  destruction  and  these  I 
have  published.^ 

^American  Journal  of  Archxology ,  1887. 


352  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

Signatures.  —  The  fashion  of  signing  their  works  was  even 
more  popular  with  these  Roman  artists  than  with  any  other 
Italian  school.  It  is  fortunate,  for  their  names  do  not  occur 
at  all  in  contemporary  literature  and  very  seldom  even  in  ac- 
counts and  registers.  If  it  were  not  for  the  inscriptions,  hardly 
one  of  these  artists  could  have  been  identified  with  his  work. 
Yet,  modest  artisans  though  they  may  have  been  considered 
by  their  contemporaries,  they  had  a  pleasing  consciousness  not 
only  of  their  own  personal  m-erit,  but  of  their  exceptional  posi- 
tion as  Romans.  From  the  very  beginning  they  were  not 
troubled  with  modesty.  Paulus,  in  signing  his  work  at  Feren- 
tino,  calls  himself  a  great  artist :  Jioc  opifex  magnus  fecit 
vir  nomine  Paulus.  A  little  later,  when  their  art  was  more 
fully  developed  and  they  were  more  sure  of  their  skill  and  style, 
they  would  call  themselves  "most  learned  Roman  masters," 
magistri  doctissimi  Homani,  and  "Roman  citizens,"  cives 
Romaniy  especially  when  signing  their  works  outside  of  Rome, 
where  they  were  not  so  well  known  and  where  they  could 
more  fitly  vaunt  themselves  of  their  Roman  birth. 

School  of  Rainerius  or  Ranucius.  —  A  second  school  arose  in 
the  wake  of  that  of  Paulus.  It  was  founded  by  an  artist 
whose  name  seems  to  be  variously  given  as  Rainerius  and 
Ranucius,  though  it  is  not  absolutely  certain  that  these  were 
not  two  distinct  men.  It  would  seem  too  strange  a  coincidence 
that  two  men  should  each  have  two  sons  with  the  same  names 
and  also  artists  in  the  same  special  branch.  For  in  Rome,  in 
the  first  half  of  the  twelfth  century,  we  find  that  the  decorative 
work  of  the  interior  of  S.  Silvestro  in  Capite  was  given  to 
Rainerius  and  his  two  sons,  Nicolaus  and  Petrus.  He  signed 
it:  — 

EGO  RAINERIUS  CUM    FILIIS  MEIS  NYCOLAUS  ET  PETRUS  HOC 
INCIPIMUS    ET    COMPLEVIMUS. 

Then,  toward  the  middle  of  the  century,  when  we  would  ex- 
pect the  sons  to  have  succeeded  their  father  at  the  head  of  the 
workshop,  we  find  Nicolaus  and  Petrus,  called  sons  of  Ranu- 
cius and  Romans,  artists  of  the  decorative  work  on  the  facade 
at  Corneto,  which  I  describe  under  "  Roman  Province,"  where  I 


ROMAN  ARTISTS  353 

also  mention  some  of  the  subsequent  work  of  this  family 
school,  as  far  as  its  fourth  and  apparently  final  generation. 

School  of  Laurentius.  —  In  about  the  middle  of  the  twelfth 
century  two  other  family  schools  were  founded  that  w^re  to 
be  generous  rivals  in  local  leadership  for  almost  a  century, 
and  to  whom  it  is  probable  that  the  originality  and  greatness 
of  the  school  were  largely  due.  These  are  the  family  of 
Laurentius,  commonly  called  the  "Cosmati,"  and  that  of 
Vassallettus. 

Laurentius,  the  son  of  Thebaldus,  founded  the  family  school 
to  which  Eoman  art  owed  the  greatest  progress.  It  struck 
very  soon  a  new  note.  Joined  to  a  greater  technical  perfec- 
tion in  the  handling  of  line  and  surface  was  a  deeper  study 
and  feeling  of  the  antique,  and  a  more  exquisite  sense  of  color 
and  proportion.  Until  now  the  carving  of  capitals  and  cor- 
nices had  been  slack,  outlines  were  blurred  and  classic  forms 
rather  parodied  than  reproduced.  But  Laurentius  and  his  son 
Jacobus  effected  a  transformation. 

We  do  not  know  any  of  the  early  work  by  Laurentius,  only 
what  he  did  with  his  son's  assistance.  The  refrain  recurs 
again  and  again :  Lmtrentins  cum  Jacobo,  sometimes  just  these 
words,  as  in  the  decoration  of  the  cathedral  of  Segni ;  sometimes 
with  the  added  j^//o  suo  and  hoc  opus  fecit  or  fecerunt  or  liuius 
operis  magister  fuit.  A  more  poetic  inscription  in  verse  occurred 
on  their  pulpit  in  the  old  basilica  of  S.  Peter :  — 

HOC  OPUS  EX  AURO   VITREIS  LAURENTIUS  EGIT 
CUM  JACOBO  NATO  SCULPSIT  SIMUL  AC  PEREGIT. 

Father  and  son  worked  indiscriminately  throughout  the  nor- 
mal sphere  of  Roman  influence,  having  charge  of  important 
architectural  and  decorative  work  north  of  Kome  at  Civita 
Castellana  and  Falleri,  to  the  east  at  the  monastery  of  Subiaco, 
to  the  south  at  the  cathedral  of  Segni.  Most  of  their  work  in 
Rome  is  destroyed,  and  the  two  pulpits  at  S.  Maria  in  Aracoeli, 
though  remodelled,  could  be  reconstructed. 

Laurentius  seems  to  have  died  before  1205,  leaving  his  son 
to  complete  their  unfinished  work  on  the  cathedral  of  Civita 
Castellana  and   Subiaco.     That    Laurentius    commenced    his 
2a 


354 


CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  MONUMENTS 


artistic  career  earlier  than  is  commonly  imagined,  perhaps  in 
about  1160,  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  already  in  1180  his  son 
Jacobus  is  a  sufficiently  experienced  artist  to  be  associated 
with  Nicolaus  or  Niccolo  di  Angelo  in  the  work  at  S.  Bartolom- 
meo  and  to  produce  the  wonderful  nineteen  colonnettes  I  have 
mentioned.  In  the  year  1205,  Jacobus  signs  his  name  alone, 
without  his  father's,  to  the  doorway  at  S.  Saba  in  Rome,  of 


Mosaic  Choir-stalls  and  Throne  at  S.  Lorenzo  (c.  1250). 


whose  two-storied  portico  and  fagade  he  seems  to  have  been 
the  architect.  At  the  same  time  he  executed  the  pavement 
and  decoration  of  S.  Ambrogio  in  Pescheria.  Perhaps  now, 
certainly  before  1209,  he  built  the  first  section  of  the  cloister 
at  Subiaco.  Then  in  1210  Jacobus  associated  his  own  son 
Cosmas  in  his  work  at  Civita  Castellana,  to  which  he  evidently 
returned  after  completing  these  other  undertakings,  beginning 
work  there  on  the  facade  in  1208  or  1209  without  his  son's 
assistance  and  then  calling  him  in  when  he  commenced  the 
great  porch.  Henceforth  the  name  of  his  son  CosmaS  is 
coupled  with  his ;  once  it  is  with  a  date,  1218,  when  he  built 


ROMAN  ARTISTS  355 

the  doorway  of  the  hospital  of  S.  Tommaso  in  Formis  with  the 
mosaic  medallion  above  it. 

Meanwhile  Cosmas  himself  was  training  his  sons,  and  the 
family  school  was  flourishing  and  expanding.  Its  popularity 
was  warranted  by  its  skill,  and  drew  other  artists  to  it.  Shortly 
after  1220  his  father  Jacobus  had  retired  or  died  and  Cosmas 
alone  is  responsible  for  several  works  in  the  decade  before 
1230,  as  the  ciborium  and  altar  at  SS.  Giovanni  e  Paolo  in 
Eome  and  the  pavement  of  the  cathedral  at  Anagni.  It  was  to 
this  cathedral  that  he  appears  to  have  devoted  himself  up  to  the 
year  1231,  first  alone  and  then  with  his  two  sons,  old  enough  to 
join  him.  I  shall  describe  elsewhere  the  extensive  work  they 
accomplished  in  the  furnishing  of  this  cathedral  and  its  im- 
mense crypt  with  pavements,  altars,  choir-screens,  ciboria,  etc. 

Hardly  was  this  work  finished  when  they  were  called  to 
Subiaco  to  continue  the  work  on  the  cloister  which  Jacobus 
had  been  obliged  to  discontinue  in  order  to  complete  the 
cathedral  of  Civita  Castellana  and  other  unfinished  work. 
This  work  done,  before  1235,  Lucas,  the  elder  son,  was  sent 
back  to  Civita  Castellana  with  Drudus,  another  member  of  the 
school,  though  not,  apparently,  a  member  of  the  family,  to  deco- 
rate the  interior.     They  signed  the  superb  choir-seats. 

After  this  we  lose  sight  of  the  school  of  Laurentius. 

School  of  Vassallettus.  —  A  couple  of  decades,  perhaps,  after 
Laurentius  founded  his  school,  another  artist  commenced  a 
career  and  a  family  school  that  still  remains  obscure  in  its  de- 
tails and  chronology,  though  exceedingly  brilliant  in  its  results. 
His  name  was  variously  spelled  Bassallectus,  Vassallettus  or 
Vassallectus.  There  are  rumors  of  a  father  before  him ;  but 
what  is  certain  is  that  in  about  1170  Petrus  Vassallectus  was 
associated  with  Nicolaus  de  Angelo  in  the  oft-mentioned  carved 
paschal  candlestick  at  S.  Paul,  and  that  in  1186  he  worked  at 
the  cathedral  of  Segni.  Perhaps  we  would  not  attach  much 
importance  to  his  name,  were  it  not  that  he  commenced  the 
cloister  of  the  Lateran  completed  by  his  more  brilliant  son, 
whose  name  was  also  Vassallettus  without  the  prefixed  "Pe- 
trus," between  1120  and  1230.  Then  follows  a  series  of  brilliant 
works,  including  the  basilica  and  porch  of  S.  Lorenzo,  lasting 


356  CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  MONUMENTS 

till  about  1270,  whether  all  by  this  second  Vassallettus  or  by 
a  third  generation  is  yet  uncertain.  There  is  an  early  work,  by 
the  father,  at  SS.  Apostoli,  the  lion  of  a  portal ;  then  an  epis- 
copal throne  at  S.  Croce  in  Gerusalemme,  probably  part  of  a 
large  choir  decoration  and  an  undetermined  work  at  the  Vatican 
basilica  —  all  in  Eome.  He  also  worked  in  the  small  towns  of 
the  province,  as  at  Civita  Lavinia  (Cathedral).  It  is  by  his 
episcopal  throne  and  paschal  candlestick  at  the  cathedral  of 
Anagni  that  we  can  still  admire  the  special  talent  he  displayed 
as  a  sculptor.  While  brilliant  as  mosaicist  and  decorator,  it  is 
in  the  chapter  on  Sculpture  that  I  will  show  how  important  a 
place  Vassallettus  takes  in  the  revival  of  art. 

All  these  family  schools  of  the  twelfth  century  had  died  out 
or  intermingled  before  or  shortly  after  the  middle  of  the  thir- 
teenth century.  The  extension  of  the  art  had  favored  indepen- 
dent artists.  Men  like  the  two  Andreas,  father  and  son,  who 
decorated  S.  Maria  in  Monticelli  at  Eome  (1215)  ;  like  Pietro 
at  Alba;  like  Ivo  at  Vicovaro;  like  Petrus  Oderisi  at  Viterbo, 
perhaps  the  same  Petrus  who  was  called  by  King  Henry  III 
to  decorate  Westminster  Abbey  —  all  these  brilliant  men  had, 
so  far  as  we  know,  no  family  connections  as  a  reason  for  their 
artistic  career. 

Family  of  Cosmatus. — But  before  the  close  of  the  school's 
history,  one  more  family  emerges  and  after  a  brilliant  and 
fruitful  career  dies  out  with  Roman  art  itself;  it  is  the  school 
of  Cosmatus. 

This  artist  is  known  at  present  only  by  the  chapel  of  the 
Sancta  Sanctorum,  a  masterpiece  described  elsewhere  and  exe- 
cuted in  1277-1278.  His  four  sons  are  known  by  works  rang- 
ing between  c.  1295  and  1332.  These  four  sons  were  Jacobus, 
Petrus,  Johannes  and  Adeodatus.  Of  the  two  latter  only  do  we 
need  describe  the  works,  as  they  were  particularly  productive. 

The  specialty  of  Johannes,  or  as  he  is  commonly  called,  Gio- 
vanni Cosmati,  was  sepulchral  monuments,  including  mosaic 
paintings  and  frescos,  showing  that  he,  more  than  any  other 
member  of  the  school,  had  felt  the  influence  of  the  new  pictorial 
revival.  His  work  is  noticed  elsewhere  in  detail.  Nothing 
of  his  dates  later  than  1301.     As  a  sculptor  and  decorator  his 


ROMAN  ARTISTS  357 

work  is  hardly  equal  to  the  great  masters  who  preceded  him. 
He  is  a  Kleinmeister. 

Deodatus,  probably  the  youngest  of  the  brothers,  had  more 
originality  and  a  better  technique,  as  designer,  decorator  and 
sculptor.  Under  Boniface  VIII  he  probably  had  charge  of  the 
artistic  work  done  at  the  Lateran  in  anticipation  of  the  Jubilee 
of  1300.  Though  he  felt  the  influence  of  Arnolfo,  he  shows  in 
his  ciborium  at  S.  Maria  in  Cosmedin  that  he  was  less  inclined 
to  abandon  the  use  of  mosaics  for  that  of  sculpture  in  church 
furniture,  and  also  shows  his  exquisite  taste  as  a  designer, 
equal  if  not  superior  to  the  great  Arnolfo' s.  His  work  for 
Boniface  must  be  credited  to  his  youth,  as  he  lived  and  worked 
for  thirty  years  longer,  though  not  in  Kome,  for  he  was  one  of 
those  who  emigrated  when  the  School  disintegrated  on  the 
departure  of  the  Popes. 

FAMILY  SCHOOL  OF  PAULUS 
c.  1100  Paulus 

1148-1154      ;  i  \  j  ■ 

I  >  I  I 

Petnis        Joannes        Angelas        Sasso 

1160-1180    Nicolaus 


a  son 
(name  unknown) 

FAMILY   SCHOOL   OF   RANUCIUS 
c.  1135  Ranucius      (=  Rainerius  ?) 


1143    Petras  1145-1150    Nicolaus 


1168    Johannes  1168    Guitto 


1209    Johannes 


358  CLASSIFICATION   OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

FAMILY  SCHOOL   OF   LAURENTIUS 

(Thebaldus) 

c.  1160-1200     Laurentius 


c.  1180-1218    Jacobus  I 


c.  1210-1231     Cosinas  I 


1231-1235     Lucas  1231-1235    Jacobus  II 

FAMILY   SCHOOL   OF   BASSALLECTUS 
c.  1150  Bassallectus  I  (?) 

c.  1180-1225  Petrus  Bassallectus  II 


c.  1225-1260      Vassallectus  III 


FAMILY   SCHOOL   OF   COSMAS  II 
(Mellini) 

Cosmatus 


1276 


Jacobus  Petrus  Johannes  Deodatus 

1296  1296-1303  1295-1332 


^ 


ART  IN  THE  ROMAN    PROVINCE 

Geographical  Limits.  —  Many  of  the  small  towns  and  cities  of 
the  Eoman  province  preserve  mediaeval  works  of  art  that  com- 
plete the  contemporary  series  in  Kome  itself.  It  is  merely  by 
accident  that  they  happen  to  be  elsewhere  than  in  Rome.  The 
same  artists  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries  whose 
names  are  found  in  Roman  churches  also  claim  the  authorship 
of  many  of  these  provincial  monuments,  and  other  artists  whose 
works  in  Rome  itself  are  now  destroyed  are  known  only  from 
the  records  of  their  artistic  work  in  the  province.  The  limits 
of  the  activity  of  the  Roman  school  were  practically  determined 
by  political  conditions.  They  extend  southward  a  little  farther 
than  the  Pontine  marshes,  to  Fondi  and  Gaeta,  being  bounded 
on  the  south  by  the  province  of  Naples.  From  the  coast  the  line 
runs  northeast  and  northwest  through  Sora,  Celano  and  Rieti, 
leaving  the  Abruzzi  to  the  northeast  except  a  fringe  of  it  which 
comes  within  Roman  influence,  as  at  Alba  and  Rocca  di  Botte. 
Continuing  northward,  the  southwest  part  of  Umbria  is  found 
to  be  partly  invaded  by  the  Roman  school,  so  that  the  line 
runs  above  Spoleto  and  Foligno,  crosses  westward  to  Orvieto 
and  ends  on  the  seaboard  at  Grosseto,  near  the  Tuscan  border. 

Within  these  boundaries  the  role  of  the  Roman  school  of  art 
was  quite  similar  to  that  of  the  Papacy  itself.  The  sturdy 
municipalities  of  the  province  only  grudgingly  and  occasionally 
recognized  the  temporal  power  of  the  Popes  or  the  suzerainty 
of  the  Roman  Republic.  They  had  their  independent  com- 
munal organization,  as  Rome  itself  had,  and  spelled  over  again 
the  relations  of  Rome  and  the  same  Volscian  cities  in  the  primi- 
tive days  of  antiquity.  At  the  same  time  the  local  bishop  and 
thB  feudal  families  strengthened  the  tie  with  Rome.  Three 
of  the  Popes  belonged  to  the  great  feudal  family  of  the  Conti, 
Lords  of  Segni  and  of  a  large  part  of  the  Carapagna.  The  Savelli 

359 


360  CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  MONUMENTS 

of  Rome  were  lords  of  the  greater  part  of  Sabina.  The  Colon- 
iias,  Orsinis,  Vicos,  Anguillaras  and  a  dozen  more  of  the  great 
Roman  families  held  immense  feudal  domains  throughout  the 
province.  The  art  of  the  country-seats  could  not  vary  far  from 
that  of  the  metropolis. 

Finally,  the  fact  that  so  many  of  the  Popes  of  the  twelfth 
and  thirteenth  centuries  travelled  and  lived  with  their  court  in 
the  principal  cities,  both  north  and  south,  was  an  important 
factor. 

Roman  artists  were,  therefore,  called  by  bishops,  abbots, 
nobles  and  by  the  Popes  themselves  to  supersede  local  artists. 
But  they  often  found  themselves  face  to  face  with  novel  con- 
ditions. In  the  architecture  they  usually  found  that  local  stone 
was  used  and  had  to  be  used  in  place  of  the  brick  they  were 
accustomed  to.  The  builders  with  whom  they  associated  were 
often  men  with  quite  different  artistic  traditions,  who  em- 
ployed vaulting,  rose-windows,  figured  sculpture,  in  harmony 
with  Lombard  and  Apulian  ideas.  To  this  they  were  obliged 
to  adapt  themselves. 

Corneto.  — The  most  complete  and  consecutive  example  of 
the  connection  of  a  school  of  Roman  artists  with  a  monument 
in  the  Roman  province  is  that  of  the  family  of  Ranucius  with 
the  church  of  S.  Maria  di  Castello  at  Corneto.  This  church 
is  perhaps  the  most  considerable  unspoiled  work  of  vaulted 
construction  of  the  Lombard  type  in  the  whole  Roman  province. 
It  was  founded  in  1121  and  its  construction  appears  to  have 
lasted  about  forty  years. 

The  rather  thin  simplicity  of  its  exterior  hardly  prepares 
one  for  the  grand  lines  of  its  vaulted  interior,  with  the  im- 
mense span  of  the  groin-vaulting  and  high  heavy  piers.  Cer- 
tainly no  artist  of  the  Roman  school  designed  it ;  the  structure 
stands  at  the  opposite  pole  to  a  Roman  basilica.  But  if  we 
examine  the  faqade,  we  will  notice  that  the  main  portal  and 
the  large  two-light  window  above  it  produce  quite  a  different 
effect  from  the  rest  of  the  work.  They  are  of  white  marble 
decorated  with  mosaic  inlay  and  designed  with  that  fine  sense 
of  proportion  and  surface  that  are  henceforth  to  characterize 
the  school.     The  architrave  of  the  door  is  inscribed  :  — 


ART  IN   THE  ROMAN  PROVINCE  361 

RANUCII    PETRUS    LAPIDUM    NON    DOGMATE    MERUS 
ISTUD    OPUS    MIRE    STRUXIT    QUOQUE    FECIT    OPTIME. 

It  is  dated  1143.  Pietro,  son  of  Ranucius,  was,  then,  its 
author.     The  window  above  is  inscribed  :  — 

NICOLAUS    RANUCII    MAGISTER    ROMANUS    FECIT. 

This  second  artist,  Nicolo,  was  the  other's  brother.  Both 
were  Romans  of  the  family  school  of  Eaimciiis. 

The  greater  part  of  the  mosaic  work  has  disappeared. 
Originally  it  filled  the  planes  of  the  pilastered  archivolts,  in 
delicate  patterns,  the  lines  of  which  were  uninterrupted  in 
the  window,  but  in  the  door  were  made  to  encircle  disks 
in  designs  borrowed  from  the  pavements,  as  was  the  case  with 
all  the  primitive  essays  at  vertical  decoration  of  the  sort. 
The  delicate  columns  of  the  doorway  are  of  breccia  corallina. 
Their  capitals,  which  support  a  torus  archivolt,  are  a  thor- 
oughly mediaeval  adaptation  of  the  classic  type,  not  at  all  the 
exact  reproduction  that  we  shall  see  later  in  the  school  of 
Laurentius. 

This  by  no  means  ended  the  schooPs  activity  in  the  church. 
The  pavement  was  their  work,  though  it  is  not  signed;  but 
they  did  attach  their  names  both  to  the  ciborium  over  the 
altar  and  to  the  ambone  or  pulpit.  The  ciborium  is  dated 
1166  and  inscribed  :  — 

JOHANNES    ET    GUITTO    MAGISTRI    HOC    OPUS    FECERUNT. 

That  these  two  artists  were  brothers,  sons  of  the  author  of 
the  window  in  this  church,  Niccolo  di  Ranuccio,  is  shown 
by  the  signature  on  another  ciborium,  that  in  the  church  of 
S.  Andrea  in  Flumine  near  Ponzano,  where  we  read  :  — 

NICOLAUS    CUM    SUIS    FILIIS    JOHANNES    ET    GUITTONE 
FECERUNT    HOC    OPUS. 

As  the  Corneto  ciborium  has  been  almost  entirely  modern- 
ized, its  original  form  must  be  sought  in  the  unspoiled  one  at 
Ponzano,  which  is  a  trifle  earlier,  being  the  work  of  the  two 
brothers  while  their  father  was  still  living  and  directing  them. 
It  has  the  same  general  design  as  that  of  S.  Giorgio  in  Velabro 


362  CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  MONUMENTS 

and  as  those  of  the  other  contemporary  family  of  Paulus  at 
S.  Lorenzo  and  elsewhere.  Only  in  such  details  as  the  capitals 
we  seem  to  see  less  of  antique  influence  and  none  that  is 
archaistically  mediaeval. 

Still  later  is  the  ambone  at  Corneto.  It  was  not  done  until 
1209 ;  and  yet  it  is  by  one  of  the  same  family,  by  John,  son 
of  the  Guitto  of  the  ciborium  ! 

.    .    .    PER   MANUS    JOHANNIS    GUITTONIS    CIVIS    ROMANUS. 

This  ambone  is  a  peculiar  work,  for  it  shows  how  a  style  of 
design  could  persist  in  a  family  school  for  over  sixty  years, 
while  other  family  schools  were  making  history.  There  is  no 
perceptible  change  in  the  scheme  for  the  arrangement  of  the 
mosaic  patterns,  and  the  lines  and  grotesque  carvings  of  the 
colonnette-corbels  are  as  barbarous  as  the  worst  work  of 
the  tenth  and  eleventh  centuries. 

For  this  reason  I  hesitate  to  attribute  to  the  John,  the  uncle 
of  this  artist  and  joint  author  of  the  ciborium,  a  highly 
decorated  ambone  at  the  other  end  of  the  province,  in  the 
cathedral  of  Fondi,  though  it  is  certainly  a  work  of  the  twelfth 
century.  It  is  inscribed  with  one  of  the  most  discursive  and 
descriptive  of  such  dedications  :  — 

TABULA    MARMOREIS    VITREIS    DISTINCTA    LAPILLIS 

DOCTORIS    STUDIO    SIC    EST    ERECTA    JOHANNIS 

ROMANO    GEXITO    COGNOMINE    NICOLAO. 

"  This  marble  slab  picked  out  with  designs  in  marble  and 
glass  cubes  is  erected  by  the  art  of  the  learned  John  born  of  a 
Roman  father  named  Niccolo."  The  mosaic  inlay  is  here 
extremely  rich  and  in  the  style  affected  in  the  neighboring 
Terracina,  under  the  influence  of  the  early  Campanian  school 
of  decorators  of  Sessa,  Salerno,  Amalfi,  Ravello  and  Cava. 
Whether  we  can  identify  this  author  of  the  Fondi  pulpit  with 
the  artist  of  the  same  name  at  Corneto  depends  on  how  much 
allowance  we  are  willing  to  make  for  a  change  in  a  man's  style 
under  the  influence  of  a  new  environment.  The  inscription 
would  seem  to  indicate  that  this  use  of  mosaic  work  w^s  a 
novelty. 


ART  IN   THE  ROMAN  PROVINCE 


363 


Toscanella.  —  About  halfway  between  Corneto  and  Viterbo, 
in  the  northernmost  part  of  the  Roman  province,  is  Toscanella, 
with  a  most  interesting  group  of  churches  and  civil  and  mili- 
tary structures  standing  in  untouched  and  picturesque  desola- 
tion. The  churches  are  quite  sui  generis:  wooden-roofed 
basilicas,  yet  not  of  the  Roman  type,     j^either  are  they  like 


Fa9ade  of  S.  Pietro,  Toscanella. 
(With  main  doorway  by  Homan  artists.) 

anything  in  Tuscany  or  Lombardy,  or  even  in  the  nearest 
cities,  Vetralla  or  Viterbo.  The  most  interesting  of  the 
churches  are  S.  Pietro  and  S.  Maria  Maggiore.  The  immense 
span  of  their  arcades,  the  stone  seats  separating  nave  and 
aisles  at  S.  Pietro,  the  type  of  the  heavy  and  crude  capitals, 
the  thick-set  columns,  are  all  features  of  immense  character. 
Equally  striking  are  the  faqades:  symmetrical,  with  their 
quadruple  division  of  portal,  gallery,  rose-window  and  gable ; 
yet  barbaric  in  the  colossal  carved  figures  representing  the 
forces  of  nature   (dragons,  bulls,  etc.)  and  the  forces  of  the 


364  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

spirit  (symbols  of  evangelists,  etc.).  The  hand  of  Apulian 
artists  is  betrayed  in  these  monsters  and  in  the  Byzantine 
line  of  reversed  foliage  that  forms  some  of  the  portal  arehi- 
volts. 

Without  denying  other  traces  of  their  presence  there  is  one 
feature,  the  main  portal  of  S.  Pietro,  which  is  indubitably  by 
the  hand  of  a  Koman  artist,  contemporary  with  the  brothers 
of  the  Corneto  facade,  Pietro  and  Niccolo,  if  he  be  not  earlier 
and  of  the  time  of  Paschal  II.  If  anything,  the  style  is  a  trifle 
more  beautiful.  The  greater  recessing,  marked  by  the  three 
shafts  instead  of  the  single  one,  is  due  to  the  projection  of  the 
central  section  of  the  facade.  This  doorway,  though  certainly 
contemporary  with  the  rest  of  the  facade,  is  not  only  different 
in  its  texture,  —  a  white  marble  that  contrasts  with  the  loose- 
textured  peperino  of  the  rest,  —  but  in  the  principles  of  design. 
At  the  same  time,  while  no  Roman  artist  was  responsible  for 
the  rest  of  the  design  of  the  faqade,  the  Eoman  handiwork  is 
evident  in  the  mosaic  inlay  of  the  bands  of  the  rose-window 
and  its  frame  and  around .  the  two-light  windows,  also  in  the 
colonnettes  of  windows  and  gallery.  Inside  the  church  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  the  pavement  is  of  the  regular  Roman 
type  —  well  preserved  in  the  choir.  The  date  of  1093,  given  as 
that  of  the  consecration  of  the  high  altar,  is  indicative  of  the 
time  of  construction.  The  ciborium  on  which  it  is  cut  is  not, 
however,  by  the  hand  of  a  Roman  artist;  it  is  rather  Apulian. 

Viterbo  is  architecturally  one  of  the  most  surprising  of  the 
small  mediaeval  cities  of  Italy.  Its  basilical  churches,  its  episco- 
pal palace,  its  picturesque  and  highly  finished  private  palaces, 
its  beautiful  fountains  and  the  cathedral  with  its  campanile, 
form  a  varied  group  of  structures  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth 
centuries  when  Viterbo  lived  a  full  and  strenuous  life  in  the 
closest  connection  with  Rome  and  the  Popes,  many  of  whom 
passed  here  a  large  part  of  their  pontificate.  Of  its  works  of 
art  I  shall  speak  only  as  they  connect  with  Rome  and  her  art. 
Studied  as  a  whole  Viterbo  has  a  distinct  school  of  architecture. 
Its  cathedral  campanile  in  its  polychromy  and  with  its  low 
spire  is  not  in  the  least  Roman.  And  yet  we  must  allow. that 
in  the  construction  of  its  churches  the  artists  of  Viterbo  not 


ART  IN   THE  ROMAN  PROVINCE  365 

only  adopted  the  Koman  basilical  type,  but  also  exported  from 
Rome  the  columns  used  in  them.  They  went  even  further, 
for  in  details  like  the  rose- window  of  S.  Giovanni  in  Zoccoli 
(similar  to  that  of  S.  Pietro,  Toscanella,  which  it  resembles  in 
its  interior)  we  see  the  hand  of  a  Roman  mosaicist ;  and  the 
pavement  of  the  cathedral  is  also  by  a  Roman. 

It  was  during  the  years  following  the  middle  of  the  thir- 
teenth century,  that  Viterbo  saw  the  most  numerous  works  by 
Roman  artists,  —  works  which  are  mostly  described  elsewhere : 
the  tombs  of  Popes  Clement  IV  and  Hadrian  V,  of  Prefect 
de  Vico,  the  tabernacle  by  Vassalletto,  the  description  of  which 
comes  more  properly  in  the  historic  review  of  Roman  sculp- 
ture. 

Orvieto.  —  Even  further  north  is  Orvieto,  which  though  on 
the  Tuscan  border  was  regarded  as  an  outpost  of  the  Roman 
province.  From  its  proximity  to  the  Tiber  Orvieto  could 
easily  obtain  antique  materials  from  Rome,  and  there  are 
here  even  more  traces  of  Rome  than  at  Viterbo,  which  it 
almost  equals  in  the  interest  of  its  mediaeval  architecture. 
Its  civil  structures  and  its  basilicas  are  not,  it  is  true,  on  as 
high  a  level  of  workmanship  and  are  careless  in  detail,  but  its 
two  superb  public  palaces  and  its  incomparable  cathedral  are 
superior  to  anything  in  Viterbo.  Orvietan  architecture  also 
is  characteristically  local. 

The  earliest  Roman  work  here  is  the  mosaic  pavement  of 
the  monastic  church  of  SS.  Silvestro  e  Martirio,  outside  the 
city  —  a  real  architectural  enigma  of  the  twelfth  century. 
Almost  as  early  is  the  city  church  of  S.  Andrea,  rebuilt  in 
the  twelfth  century  with  a  mosaic  pavement  and  several  pieces 
of  Roman  church  furniture  of  the  close  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury :  a  memorial  tabernacle  with  twisted  columns  supporting 
a  trefoil  arch  and  framing  an  altar  picture  of  the  Virgin  and 
Child  with  two  saints;  and  a  pulpit.  The  pulpit  is  a  good 
piece  of  Roman  mosaic  decoration.  It  has  not  the  Roman 
shape,  but  that  affected  by  the  preachers  of  the  Franciscan 
and  Dominican  orders.  It  is  a  five-sided  structure  set  up 
against  the  right-hand  pier  at  the  transept. 

The  fagade  of  the  cathedral  of   Orvieto,  a  piece  of  poly. 


366  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

chromy  and  sculpture,  is  an  instance  of  how  Roman  materials 
and  artists  could  be  made  to  subserve  a  design  that  was  abso- 
lutely anti-classic.  Several  E-oman  artists  are  known  to  have 
worked  upon  it  and  for  it,  especially  in  the  mosaic  inlay,  and 
the  materials  for  it  came  from  Kome. 

Only  one  other  relic  of  Eome  remains  in  Orvieto,  the  tomb 
of  Cardinal  de  Braye,  by  Arnolfo,  an  early  masterpiece  which 
is  described  among  his  works. 

Umbria.  —  Crossing  the  Tiber  just  below  Orvieto,  we  find  a 
unique  example  of  a  provincial  form  of  the  Roman  style  in  the 
church  of  S.  Maria  Assunta  at  Lugnano  in  southwest  Umbria. 
The  porch  extending  across  the  facade  is  not  far  different 
from  the  heavier  early  Roman  porticos  such  as  that  of  S. 
Giorgio  in  Velabro,  and  the  architrave  is  relieved  of  excessive 
weight  in  the  same  way  by  low  arches,  only  the  effect  is  far 
different,  for  instead  of  being  of  brick  and  concealed  in  the 
brickwork,  they  are  free-standing.  The  Roman  mosaic  inlay, 
which  decorates  porch  and  faqade,  appears  also  in  the  con- 
fession at  the  high  altar.  It  is  a  very  complete  little  church, 
unspoiled  except  in  its  vaulting  and  apse.  There  is  no  trace 
of  antique  materials  ;  everything  was  executed  on  the  site. 

Further  north  in  Umbria,  near  Foligno,  is  the  Cloister  of 
Sassovivo,  built  by  an  artist  named  Pietro  de  Maria  in  1229,  "  in 
the  Roman  manner  "  (see  "  Cloisters  ").  In  Foligno  itself  there 
are  traces  of  Roman  workmanship  in  1201  in  the  doorway  of 
the  cathedral ;  also  at  Spoleto  and  elsewhere. 

But  Narni,  being  more  within  the  Roman  orbit,  is  especially 
rich.  The  cathedral,  S.  Maria  in  Pensole,  S.  Domenico,  are 
basilical  churches  with  the  purely  Roman  type  of  mosaic 
pavements.  The  cathedral  is  of  early  foundation,  partly  re- 
constructed in  about  the  twelfth  century.  Of  this  date  is  the 
campanile,  which  is  exactly  of  the  Roman  type,  even  to  the 
material,  which  is  not  stone  but  brick.  Here  and  at  S.  Maria 
in  Pensole  a  weird,  ungraceful  effect  is  given  to  the  interior 
by  the  use  for  spanning  the  space  between  the  columns  of  the 
nave,  not  of  either  arches  or  architraves,  but  of  the  low  form 
of  segmental  arch  used  in  Rome  to  break  the  pressure  on  the 
architrave  by  concentrating  it  over  the  columns,  — a  form  that 


ART  IN   THE  ROMAN  PROVINCE  367 

was  always  concealed  or  at  least  never  used  without  the  archi- 
trave and  without  filling  in  the  intervals.  There  is  also  a 
piece  of  decorative  mosaic  work  in  the  Cathedral  that  is 
among  the  earliest  products  of  the  Roman  school  in  vertical 
decoration  —  the  shrine  of  S.  Cassius. 

Sabina.  —  The  province  of  Sabina,  below  Umbria,  on  the 
east  bank  of  the  Tiber,  was  a  favorite  camping-ground  for  the 
Roman  artists,  for  it  had  always  been  a  fief  of  some  Roman 
noble  with  occasional  sections  belonging  to  some  large  monas- 
tery. The  ruined  Foronovo  cathedral  near  Torri  preserves  its 
ancient  crypt,  pavement  and  campanile  ;  its  ambone  is  deco- 
rated with  mosaics  and  so  was  its  confession.  Its  frescos  are 
of  the  last  period  of  the  Roman  school.  At  Catino,  both  parish 
and  ruined  castle  church  were  Roman. 

Most  important  of  all  were  the  monuments  of  Palombara,  a 
fief  of  the  great  Savelli  family  of  Rome  which  gave  to  the 
Papacy  Honorius  III  and  Honorius  IV.  The  parish  church 
and  the  churches  of  S.  Biagio  and  S.  Giovanni  in  Argentella 
were  founded  in  or  about  the  time  of  Paschal  II.  That  of 
S.  Biagio  was  restored  by  Honorius  III  and  was  the  family 
church  of  the  Savelli,  containing  several  monuments  of  the 
family.  An  inscription  of  1101  gives  this  date  for  its  conse- 
cration and  the  name  of  its  architect  Joannes  Blasius. 

Other  Roman  works  of  the  thirteenth  century  are  at  Monte- 
bono,  where  S.  Pietro  has  a  fine  campanile  and  some  frescos 
of  1204,  and  Toffia,  where  S.  Lorenzo  has  an  interesting  facade. 
The  early  Gothic  style,  especially  the  form  in  which  it  was 
imported  from  Burgundy  by  the  Cistercians,  found  lodgement 
in  this  province  during  the  thirteenth  century,  partly  expelling 
the  basilical  plan  and  construction.  But  in  painting  the  Sabina 
remained  dependent  on  Rome. 

Near  Soracte.  —  Crossing  the  Tiber  once  more  westward,  above 
Soracte,  we  come  on  a  group  of  towns  and  monasteries  that 
were  from  their  closeness  to  Rome  more  generally  subject  to 
its  artistic  supremacy.  They  are  especially  the  cities  of 
Civita  Castellana,  Nepi  and  Sutri ;  the  monasteries  of  S.  Elia,  of 
Soracte,  of  S.  Andrea  near  Ponzano  and  S.  Maria  di  Falleri ;  and, 
finally,  the  villages  of  Rignano,  Leprignano  and  Fiano ;  they 


368 


CLASSIFICATION  OF   TJIE  MONUMENTS 


are  full  of  works  illustrating  especially  the  earlier  days  of  the 
later  Middle  Ages,  from  the  middle  of  the  tenth  to  the  close  of 
the  twelfth  century,  though  there  is  also  some  decorative  work 
of  the  early  thirteenth  at  Civita  Castellana.  Leprignano  pro- 
vides the  only  remaining  iconostasis  screen  of  the  pre-Cosmati 
style ;  S.  Elia  and  S.  Andrea  the  most  extensive  frescos  of 
the  tenth  century  and  the  best  dated  basilicas  of  that  period. 


Porch  of  Cathedral,  Civita  Castellana. 
(By  Laurentius  and  his  son  Jacobus,  1210.) 


The  cathedrals  of  Nepi  and  Sutri,  while  their  interiors  are 
ruined,  have  preserved  extensive  crypts  of  the  eleventh  or 
twelfth  centuries  of  a  size  unknown  to  Rome  itself.  The  shafts 
and  some  of  the  capitals  in  these  crypts  are  from  the  ruins  of 
Rome,  taken  during  the  days  subsequent  to  the  fire.  At  Sutri 
especially  the  cathedral  must  have  equalled  that  of  Civita 
Castellana.  Its  large  crypt  has  four  radiating  chapels  and 
sixteen  niches.  The  interior  had  originally  columns  with  Co- 
rinthian capitals.  The  superb  mosaic  pavement  is  now  restored 
with  pieces  of  tlie  choir-seats,  ambones  and  choir-screen  of 
beautiful  mosaic  work  by  Roman  artists  of  the  close  of  the 
twelfth  century.     To  the  same  period  belongs  the  fine  main 


ART  IN   THE  ROMAN  PROVINCE  369 

doorway  and  the  campanile  on  the  right  of  the  facade.  Other 
churches  have  retained  some  parts  of  their  Roman  work  ;  the 
pavement  at  S.  Giacomo ;  the  altar  and  pavement  at  S.  Angelo 
(S.  Francesco). 

The  cathedral  at  Nepi,  on  a  somewhat  smaller  scale,  is  of  the 
same  age  and  style,  also  built  of  peperino  and  partly  of  antique 
materials,  as  shown  by  the  crypt,  which  has  three  aisles  running 
across  the  entire  width  of  the  church.  Heavy  projecting  abaci 
support  well-built  groin  vaults,  and,  like  the  church  above, 
there  are  three  apses.  There  seem  to  be  no  two  capitals  alike ; 
some  are  pseudo-corinthian,  some  have  interlaced  animals,  one 
is  cubic. 

i^ear  Nepi  is  the  monastery  of  S.  Elia,  famous  for  its  frescos 
described  elsewhere,  and  for  its  church,  first  built  in  the  ninth 
century,  burned  by  the  Saracens  and  then  rebuilt  after  939  when 
it  was  given  to  Monte  Cassino.  Both  this  church  and  those  of 
the  other  monasteries  belong  strictly  to  the  Roman  school. 

Civita  Castellana,  the  ancient  Falerii,  was  the  first  mediaeval 
town  of  importance  north  of  Rome.  The  little  church  of  S. 
Andrea,  with  its  elegant  brick  campanile,  shows  that  even  in 
its  minor  monuments,  it  was  an  integral  part  of  the  Roman 
school.  Somewhat  more  important  is  S.  Gregorio,  with  a 
heavier  campanile  of  stone.  But  preeminent  among  all  the 
monuments  of  the  Roman  province  is  its  cathedral,  where  the 
parts  we  admire  are  by  two  artists  of  the  Roman  family  school 
of  Laurentius  :  the  chief  himself  and  his  son  James  (Jacobus), 
who  decorated  and  superintended  the  construction  shortly  before 
and  after  1200,  while  the  interior  decoration  was  completed  in 
about  1225  or  1230  by  a  grandson  of  Laurentius,  Luke  (Lucas), 
who,  with  his  fellow-artist  Drudus,  signed  the  beautiful  choir- 
seats  now  removed  to  the  sacristy. 

At  the  same  time  Laurentius  and  Jacobus  built  and  dec- 
orated the  near-by  monastic  church  of  S.  Maria  di  Falleri, 
which  rises  alone,  itself  a  ruin,  inside  the  deserted  walls  of 
the  ancient  city  of  Falerii.  Here  the  great  vaults  of  the 
church,  which  show  the  hand  of  the  Cistercian  monastic  de- 
signer, emphasize  the  fact  that  the  actual  construction  — 
whether  in  stone,  as  here,  or  in  brick,  as  in  Rome  —  was 
2b 


370  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

foreign  to  the  work  of  the  Roman  niarmorarii,  to  whom  we 
can  here  attribute  only  such  parts  as  the  portal  v/hich  is 
signed  by  them :  — 

LAURENTIUS  CUM  JACOBO  FILIO  SUO  HOC  OPUS  FECERUNT. 

It  is  a  simple  structure  of  white  marble,  moderately  deco- 
rated and  far  from  being  on  the  scale  of  their  work  in  Civita 
Castellana. 

Abruzzi.  —  There  were  apparently  local  artists  in  Umbria 
and  the  Abruzzi  who  imitated  Eoman  work.  For  example,  at 
Eocca  di  Botte  in  the  latter  province,  the  pulpit  and  ciborium 
of  the  church  have  the  general  Roman  design  and  mosaic 
decoration,  but  the  crudeness  of  handiwork  and  the  clumsiness 
of  proportion  betray  the  local  imitator. 

But  elsewhere  in  the  Abruzzi,  Roman  artists  were  them- 
selves present.  The  church  at  Alba  near  Lake  Fucino  was 
decorated  early  in  the  thirteenth  century  by  two  Romans, 
Andreas  and  Johannes,  with  works  that  rival  the  best  in 
Rome.  The  church  itself  is  extremely  interesting,  being  the 
result  of  the  successive  metamorphosis  of  a  Pelasgic  place  of 
worship  into  a  Roman  temple  of  the  early  Empire  whose 
immense  Corinthian  columns  were  used  for  the  interior  of  a 
Christian  church  built  on  the  same  site.  In  c.  1225  the  two 
Roman  artists  were  called  to  decorate  it  with  an  ambone  and 
an  iconostasis  screen.  The  iconostasis  is  signed  by  Andreas 
alone : — 

ANDREAS  MAGISTER  ROMANUS  FECIT  HOC  OPUS. 

The  ambone  has  a  more  elaborate  inscription,  showing  that 
here  Andreas  was  only  the  assistant  of  Johannes,  who  calls 
himself  a  "  Roman  Citizen,  most  skilful  in  art." 

CIVIS  ROMANUS  DOCTISSIMUS  ARTE  JOHANNES 
GUI  COLLEGA  BONUS  ANDREAS  DETULIT  HONUS 
HOC  OPUS  EXELSUM  STURSSERUNT  (  !  )  MENTE  PERITI 
NOBILIS  ET  PRUDEXS  ODERISIUS  ABFUIT  ABBAS. 

One  does  not  wonder  that  Abbot  Oderisius  called  in  these 
Romans  when  one  examines  some  of  the  terribly  crude  w^'k 
he  had  to  put  up  with  at  the  hands  of  local  artists. 


ART  IN   THE  ROMAN  PROVINCE 


371 


Alban  Hills.  —  East  of  Rome,  in  the  Alban  Hills,  lies  a  group 
of  towns,  many  of  which  were  of  ancient  renown,  and  some  of 
mediaeval  importance.  Tusculum  was  punished  by  the  Romans 
with  total  destruction,  in  1191,  for  daring  to  be  its  rival. 
Albano  was  also  wiped  out.  Marino,  Albano,  Grottaferrata, 
Genzano,  Civita  Lavinia,  Ariccia,  should  be  supplemented  by 


^5P!^!!^^^^^^"^?*f^^ 

Igljll^ljiiiijl 

millSH-ll 

P^^^^k^^^^^mpm 

^-v-|jg^|^^^^^B 

-J 

i 

jg     \ — 

Ri 

Mosaic  Frieze  of  Porch,  Cathedral  of  Terracina. 


Velletri,  Palestrina,  Tivoli  and  Subiaco.  Most  of  these  towns 
became  too  popular  as  summer  resorts,  during  the  Renaissance 
and  after,  to  have  preserved  as  much  of  their  mediaeval  art  as 
the  less  frequented  towns  of  the  rest  of  the  province.  There 
is  hardly  enough  to  show  that  they  actually  did  form  an  in- 
tegral part  of  the  school,  except,  of  course,  the  Greek  monas- 
tery of  Grottaferrata,  which  was  an  oasis  of  Byzantine  art. 
Even  here,  however,  the  Roman  decorator  penetrated  in  the 
thirteenth  century,  to  erect  monuments  to  members  of  the 
famous  counts  of   Tusculum,  who   at  one  time  ruled  Rome. 


372  CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  MONUMENTS 

These  works  are  of  the  usual  type  with  tabernacles,  columns 
and  mosaic  work,  but  only  fragments  remain. 

At  Palestrina  the  cathedral  has  traces  of  its  reconstruction 
under  Paschal  II  (c.  1112) ;  at  Velletri  is  the  crypt  of  the 
cathedral  with  its  frescos  (XII  c.)  and  the  campanile  of  S. 
Maria  del  Trivio;  at  Tivoli  the  ninth-century  fresco  of  the 
apse  of  S.  Silvestro,  the  campanile  of  the  cathedral,  the 
basilical  interior  and  pavement  of  S.  Pietro,  etc.;  at  Albano 
the  campanile  of  S.  Pietro;  at  the  monasteries  of  Subiaco, 
the  remains  of  mediaeval  art  are  really  of  transcendent 
importance,  and  are  elsewhere  referred  to.  They  form  the 
subject  of  a  sumptuous  p^iblication  which  is  now  being 
issued. 

South  of  Rome,  leading  toward  the  Neapolitan  border,  were 
two  main  routes  :  one,  the  ancient  Appian  Way  through  the 
Pontine  marshes  as  far  as  Terracina,  on  the  coast,  turning 
inland  to  Fondi  and  continuing  to  Gaeta ;  the  other,  following 
the  inland  valley  of  the  Sacco  (present  railroad  to  Naples), 
with  hill  towns  on  both  sides  and  entering  the  Neapolitan 
province  near  Ceprano,  where  the  river  Liris  forms  the  historic 
frontier. 

Towns  of  the  Pontine  Region.  — Along  the  first  of  these  routes 
the  hills  to  the  north  are  crowded  by  the  cities  of  Cori,  Ser- 
moneta,  Sezze  and  Piperno,  before  Terracina  is  reached,  and 
the  road  passes  through  the  fever-stricken  and  deserted  site  of 
Ninfa,  at  the  foot  of  the  ancient  Norba.  Although  this  dis- 
trict was  a  recognized  dependency  of  E-ome  in  the  later  Middle 
Ages,  there  are  very  few  artistic  traces  of  it.  These  towns 
seem  to  have  been  slow  to  rise.  Not  till  the  latter  part  of  the 
twelfth  century  do  we  find  monuments  of  importance  such 
as  the  cathedral  of  Piperno,  built  by  the  architect  Antonio  di 
Rabotto.  Its  porch  is  a  fine  example  of  the  type  created  by 
the  monastic  architects  of  the  Benedictine  order,  as  we  see  it 
at  S.  Cleraente  di  Casauria.  In  fact,  when  these  towns  are 
built  up,  mainly  in  the  thirteenth  century,  they  do  not  patron- 
ize Roman  artists  of  any  class,  but  rather  put  themselves 
under  the  direction  of  the  monastic  school  established  by  the 
French  Cistercians  from  Burgundy  settled  at  Fossanova,  near 


ART  IN   THE  ROMAN  PROVINCE  373 

Piperno,  with  still  another  establishment  at  Valvisciolo  near 
Sermoneta  and,  across  the  hills,  at  Casamari.  The  cathedrals 
of  Sezze  and  Sermoneta,  the  parish  church  at  Amaseno,  are  de- 
rived from  these  monastic  types.  So  are  the  minor  churches, 
such  as  S.  Michele  and  S.  Nicola  at  Sermoneta.  They  are 
quite  the  opposite  to  the  columnar  basilical  type,  and  on  the 
basis  of  groin  or  ribbed  vaulting  and  piers.  In  the  absence 
in  this  region,  also,  of  any  of  the  works  of  decorative  church 
furniture  in  the  Eoman  style,  we  are  forced  to  conclude  that 
this  route  was  not  travelled  by  our  artists,  and  that  they 
reached  Terracina  by  the  sea  route. 

It  is,  however,  true  that  so  far  as  Ninfa  the  land  route  was 
frequented.  At  Cori,  on  the  way,  there  remains,  in  the  parish 
church  of  S.  Maria,  an  interesting  and  early  paschal  candle- 
stick of  the  Roman  school ;  and  Ninfa  itself  is  famous  in 
the  Papal  documents  of  the  early  Middle  Ages,  as  early  as 
the  ninth  century.  In  the  twelfth  century  it  belonged  to  the 
Frangipani.  It  had  the  honor,  in  1159,  of  being  the  place 
of  the  cardinals'  conclave  that  elected  Alexander  III.  Most  of 
its  churches  are  of  this  time,  though  S.  Marco  was  built  as 
late  as  1216  by  Cardinal  Ugolino,  who  afterward  became 
Gregory  IX.  These  churches,  whose  walls  are  covered  with 
decaying  frescos,  are  all  in  ruins,  as  it  has  not  been  inhabited 
since  the  fourteenth  century  on  account  of  malaria. 

Region  of  the  Sacco.  —  The  other  group  of  southern  towns, 
that  flanking  the  valley  of  the  Sacco,  is,  when  taken  collec- 
tively, as  important  as  any  in  the  province  of  the  history  of 
Roman  art,  for  its  artists  were  as  consistently  active  here  as 
they  were  in  the  region  immediately  to  the  north.  These  cities 
are  Anagni,  Ferentino,  Alatri  and  Veroli  on  the  north  side  of 
the  valley ;  and  Segni  on  the  south  side. 

Destruction  has  overcome  the  cathedral  of  Segni,  completed 
in  1185.  Only  from  its  inscriptions  and  archives  do  we  know 
that  it  possessed  six  signed  works  of  the  Roman  artists  of  this 
time,  which  show  that  its  architectural  details  and  furniture 
were  executed  by  the  most  famous  living  members  of  the 
school,  by  Laurentius  and  his  son  Jacobus,  by  Petrus  Vassal- 
lettus  (1186)  and  others. 


374  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

Ferentino.  —  But  at  Ferentino  we  can  still  trace,  better  even 
than  in  Rome  itself,  the  beginnings  of  the  school.  The  cathe- 
dral is  entirely,  in  construction  and  decoration,  a  work  of  the 
time  of  Paschal  II  (1106-1110)  when  the  Roman  school  of 
inagistri  marmorarii  was  founded.  And  an  inscription  shows 
not  only  the  date,  but  that  its  artist  is  the  very  founder  of  the 
school,  Paulus.  Its  construction  is  of  the  simplest.  The  ma- 
terial is  large  travertine  blocks.  The  fagade  follows  the  out- 
line of  nave  and  aisles  with  nothing  to  relieve  it  besides  the 
three  doorways  but  a  round-headed  window  in  the  gable.  The 
side  walls  are  equally  plain,  the  windows  being  without  mould- 
ings. The  triple  apse  is  a  trifle  less  simple,  its  windows  having 
flanking  colonnettes.  Still,  the  revival  of  classic  design  shows 
clearly,  even  in  the  few  existing  details,  in  the  dentils,  the  q^^- 
and-dart  and  the  pearl  ornament  of  the  archi volts  of  the  doors. 
The  corbels  of  the  apsidal  arcading  with  their  sculptured  masks 
and  patterns  may  be  compared  with  the  contemporary  work  at 
S.  Bartolommeo  all'  Isola  in  Rome. 

In  the  interior  the  old  granite  columns  have  been  submerged 
in  barocco  piers,  but  it  is  possible  to  reconstitute  even  its  dec- 
oration by  means  of  the  multitude  of  fragments  now  stored  in 
an  annex,  as  well  as  the  altar-fronts  and  other  slabs  still  in  use 
in  the  renovated  church.  On  one  of  these,  at  the  altar  of  S. 
Ambrose,  is  the  artist's  signature  :  — 

HOC    OPIFEX    MAGNUS    FECIT   VIR   NOMINE   PAULUS. 

From  an  examination  of  the  pieces  in  the  museum,  which 
were  used  as  material  by  the  barocco  "  restorer  "  of  1693,  we 
can  see  that  Paulus,  or  whoever  directed  the  building  in  1106, 
made  similar  use  as  material  of  the  ornamentation  of  an  earlier 
church  of  the  eighth-ninth  century.  He  took  the  marble  slabs 
that  formed  the  choir-screen,  the  pulpits,  the  altar  and  confes- 
sion of  this  probably  ruined  building  and  by  reversing  them 
utilized  the  smooth  surfaces  for  his  own  decorative  work,  in- 
laying them  with  the  mosaic  patterns  and  slabs  which  Paulus 
himself  was  apparently  the  first  to  bring  into  fashion.  Even 
one  arch  of  the  primitive  ciborium  has  been  preserved  in  a  sub- 
terranean room  under  the  cathedral  and  turned  into  an  altar. 


ART  IN   THE  ROMAN  PROVINCE  375 

Xow  the  choir-screens,  pulpits,  altar,  confession,  ciborium  of 
Paulus  himself  have  in  turn  been  dispersed  and  utilized. 
Some  of  the  ]3resent  altars  were  made  up  of  this  material  in 
1693.  In  one  chapel,  a  relief  with  Jonah  and  the  whale  formed 
originally  the  stairway  rail  of  his  ambone,  which  was  supported 
by  twisted  columns  inlaid  wdth  mosaic,  three  of  which  rested 
on  lions.  Either  this  work  is  not  by  Paulus,  or  this  founder 
of  the  Eoman  school  was  himself  an  offshoot  of  the  Campanian 
school,  where,  as  well  as  in  the  Abruzzi,  this  form  of  the  box 
pulpit  on  columns  was  in  vogue. 

Later  Eoman  artists  than  Paulus  worked  here  in  the  thir- 
teenth century,  as  is  clear  from  the  delicate  vitreous  inlay  of 
some  of  the  present  altar-fronts,  different  from  the  primitive 
marble  cubes  of  Paulus.  They  seem,  together  with  some  twisted 
colonnettes,  to  recompose  a  supplementary  choir-screen  added 
to  that  of  Paulus.  The  master  who  then  came  to  Ferentino 
produced  in  the  paschal  candlestick  one  of  the  finest  works  of 
the  school.  Perhaps  he  is  the  Drudus  who  then  (c.1230-1240) 
made  the  superb  ciborium  for  the  same  cathedral,  finer  than 
anything  of  its  type  remaining  in  Rome  itself. 

Anagni.  —  The  metropolis  of  Campania,  Anagni,  has  nothing 
as  old  as  the  work  of  Paulus,  but  it  was  a  Mecca  for  Roman 
artists  during  nearly  the  whole  of  the  thirteenth  century.  Its 
cathedral,  like  that  at  Ferentino,  took  the  place  of  an  earlier 
structure  decorated  with  the  same  pre-Cosmati  sculpture.  The 
new  building  was  commenced  at  the  same  time  as  Ferentino's, 
under  Paschal  II.  But  if  the  immense  crypt  was  soon  finished, 
the  upper  church  was  not  dedicated  until  1179,  and  the  deco- 
ration of  both  upper  and  lower  churches  was  continued  until 
about  1230. 

This  decoration  —  except  for  the  wall-paintings  —  was  con- 
fided to  the  then  head  of  the  most  famous  Roman  school, 
Cosmas,  son  of  Jacobus,  of  the  family  of  Laurentius.  His 
name  appears  first  in  the  pavement  of  the  upper  church :  — 

MAGISTER   COSMAS    HOC    OPUS   FECIT. 

He  then,  some  years  later,  began  work  on  the  crypt,  where  he 
was  assisted  by  his  two  sons  and  signed  the  main  altar  thus:  — 


376  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

MAGISTER    COSMAS    CIVIS    ROMANUS    CUM    FILTIS    SUIS 
LUCA    ET   JACOBO    HOC    OPUS    FECIT. 

His  long  labors  were  completed  by  his  setting  in  place  in  1231 
the  altar  of  S.  Magnus. 

In  reckoning  the  part  that  Cosmas  took  in  the  work  of  the 
cathedral  I  think  we  may  eliminate  any  part  of  its  architecture, 
though  perhaps  the  design  of  the  campanile  is  Koman.  The 
ciborium  remains  in  place  over  high  altar  and  confession.  Its 
style  and  close  connection  with  the  pavement  plan  make  it 
quite  certainly  the  work  of  Cosmas,  c.  1220;  the  primitive 
handling  of  the  capitals  excludes  a  later  date.  This  work  is 
certainly  the  prototype  of  that  by  Drudus  at  Ferentino,  an 
artist  who  was  a  pupil  of  Cosmas  and  associated  with  his  son 
Lucas  at  Civita  Castellana.  The  choir-screen  and  choir-seats, 
which  extended  into  the  nave  from  the  high  altar,  and  the 
ambones,  were  also  probably  by  Cosmas.  They  were  long 
since  destroyed  and  only  fragments  remain  in  the  sacristy. 

Another  artist,  however,  was  called  in  to  execute  the  paschal 
candlestick  and  the  episcopal  throne  in  the  apse.  He  was 
Vassallettus,  and  his  work  came  some  years  after  that  of  Cos- 
mas and  his  sons.  These  still  remain  in  the  sacristy,  though 
the  throne  is  mutilated.  Which  of  the  Vassalletti  was  he? 
From  the  type  of  sculpture  of  the  lions  flanking  the  throne 
and  the  piquant  caryatid  surmounting  the  candlestick,  I 
think  these  must  be  mature  works  of  the  Vassallettus  who 
built  and  carved  the  Lateran  cloister  more  than  thirty  years 
before  the  year  1260,  tlie  decade  to  which  they  have  been 
attributed.  The  candlestick  is  signed,  on  the  plinth  above 
the  sphinxes :  — 

VASSALLETO    ME    FECIT. 

The  signature  on  the  throne  is  under  the  circular  disk  that 
formed  the  centre  of  the  back :  — 

VASALETO    DE    KOMA    ME    FECIT. 

Another  inscription  says  that  the  throne  was  ordered  by  Bishop 
Landus.     The  inlay  in  both  these  works  is  not  of  the  iilinute 


ART  IN   THE  ROMAN  PROVINCE  377 

and  varied  character  which  is  shown  in  the  works  posterior 
to  c.  1230,  when  glass  paste  had  quite  superseded  natural 
marbles. 

Here  I  will  close  the  toiir  of  the  Roman  province  in  the 
footsteps  of  the  artists  of  the  metropolis.  Though  I  have 
omitted  numerous  minor  places  and  works,  it  is  evident 
that  they  brought  great  influence  to  bear  on  the  decorative  art 
of  almost  the  entire  region,  with  an  occasional  inroad  beyond 
the  regular  Roman  orbit.  To  the  south  they  joined  hands 
with  the  contemporary  decorative  school  in  Campania,  to 
which  they  were  so  closely  allied  that  it  is  not  easy  to  dis- 
tinguish sometimes  the  works  of  the  two  schools.  On  the 
north  they  overlapped  the  Tuscan  school  and  undoubtedly 
encouraged  its  work  in  marble  inlay  such  as  we  see  at  S. 
Miniato  in  Florence  and  the  baptistery  at  Pisa. 

It  is  even  possible  to  conjecture  that  the  Jacobus, /ra^er  S. 
Francisci,  who  in  1225  signed  the  mosaics  and  decorative  work 
of  the  apse  of  the  Florentine  baptistery,  was  a  Roman  artist, 
perhaps  the  very  famous  Jacobus,  sou  of  Laurentius,  who 
though  still  in  his  prime  disappeared  from  the  field  of  lay  art 
in  about  1220.  He  may  have  become  a  monk  of  the  new  Fran- 
ciscan order  and  been  placed  in  charge  of  the  decoration  of  the 
baptistery,  where  the  cornices,  columns  and  sculptured  details 
are  so  purely  classic  as  to  betray  almost  certainly  the  hand  of 
a  master  from  Rome,  whose  mosaics  are  of  the  minute  descrip- 
tion affected  by  the  "  Cosmati." 


ARTISTIC  INFLUENCE  OP  ROME 

This  influence  has  been  already  referred  to,  and  naturally 
falls  into  two  main  divisions :  that  of  the  ancient  city,  and  that 
of  the  Christian  city.  In  both  cases,  there  is  a  material  in- 
fluence, but  only  in  the  latter  a  spiritual  influence  as  well.  In 
fact  it  would  seem  as  if  the  ruin  wrought  by  the  fire  of  Robert 
Guiscard  in  1084  caused  renewed  activity  in  the  pillage,  and 
that  many  Italian  cities  then  entering  on  a  building  era  profited 
extremely. 

Influence  of  the  Ancient  City.  —  There  was  a  twofold  effect  of 
ancient  Rome,  according  as  to  whether  use  was  made  of  mate- 
rials actually  taken  from  classic  monuments,  or  whether  ancient 
models  were  imitated. 

Some  critics  have  fallen  into  the  error  of  concluding  that  the 
supply  of  columns  and  marbles  from  the  ruins  of  Rome  had 
become  exhausted  as  early  as  the  Carlovingian  period.  On  the 
contrary,  it  lasted,  in  abundance,  until  the  close  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  as  the  monuments  of  the  city  itself  abundantly  show. 
I  will  give  a  few  cases  for  each  period. 

King  Theodoric  had  allowed  some  ancient  material  to  be 
sent  to  him  at  Rav^enna  from  the  Domus  Pinciana,  much  as  he 
discountenanced  the  practice  in  general.  But  certainly  there 
was  little  wholesale  exportation  of  material  until  the  Lombards 
began  to  build  churches  and  monasteries.  In  725  columns  and 
marbles  were  brought  from  Rome  for  the  construction  of  the 
church  of  S.  Anastasia  at  Olonna  by  King  Luitprand,  a  practice 
repeated  during  the  eighth  century. 

Under  Charlemagne  and  his  successors  material  from  Rome 
was  carried  even  beyond  the  Alps  to  Gaul  and  Germany.  In 
building  S.  Riquier,  Abbot  Angilbert,  pupil  of  Alcuin,  is  said, 
by  the  monastic  chronicler,  to  have  used  columns  and  other 
marbles  from  Rome.     Charlemagne  himself  used  material  from 

378 


ARTISTIC  INFLUENCE  OF  ROME  379 

both  Eome  and  Kavennainhis  constructions  at  Aix-la-Chapelle. 
The  early  German  Emperors,  especially  the  Othos,  did  the 
same.  In  962  considerable  material  for  the  new  Magdeburg 
cathedral  came  from  Rome. 

The  abbots  of  northern  monasteries  in  their  pilgrimage  to 
Rome,  which  was  often  the  great  object  of  their  career,  some- 
times secured  antique  materials  as  well  as  relics  for  their  new 
churches.  A  monastic  chronicle  gives  a  picture  of  a  German 
abbot  hauling  these  marbles  with  infinite  trouble  by  mule-back 
across  the  mountains.  Even  as  late  as  the  twelfth,  the  French 
primate  Suger,  when  he  was  preparing  to  build  his  epoch-mak- 
ing church  at  S.  Denis,  tells  us  that  he  planned  to  send  to 
Rome  for  columns  and  marbles. 

Lanciani  tells  us  that  it  was  mostly  with  marbles  from  Rome 
and  Ostia  that  the  cathedral  of  Pisa  was  built  and  that  an  in- 
scription in  the  transept  Oenio.  Colonics.  Ostiensis  leaves  no 
doubt  of  the  fact,  as  well  as  a  sarcophagus  of  Proculus,  a  nota- 
ble of  Ostia.  The  cathedral  and  most  of  the  other  churches  of 
Lucca  were  built  out  of  Roman  materials  ;  so  were  the  churches 
of  Monte  Cassino,  S.  Angelo  in  Formis,  Salerno,  Amalfi  and 
many  others,  especially  in  the  towns  near  Rome. 

Last  of  all  comes  the  cathedral  of  Orvieto,  and  the  daily  offi- 
cial records  of  its  construction  and  decoration,  especially  be- 
tween 1321  and  1360,  are  full  of  details  about  the  way  marbles 
were  procured  from  the  ancient  city.  Local  Roman  stone- 
cutters, familiar  with  the  resources  of  the  ruins,  were  engaged 
to  pilot  the  emissaries  from  Orvieto,  and  a  regular  gang  of 
stone-cutters  was  established  near  Rome  to  receive  and  prepare 
the  ancient  material  and  then  ship  it  to  Orvieto  ready  for 
use. 

Though  much  of  the  ancient  material  was  reworked,  much 
again  was  not.  Columns,  bases  and  capitals  were  transferred 
bodily,  and  often  served  partly  to  determine  the  character  of 
the  new  building.  The  spread  of  the  columnar  basilical  style 
throughout  Italy  and  even  beyond  the  Alps  would  hardly  have 
been  realized  otherwise.  The  classic  orders  would  hardly  have 
been  so  widely  perpetuated.  So,  in  a  way,  vandalism  profited 
art. 


380  CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  MONUMENTS 

That  observant  eyes  also  imitated  specific  works  is  quite 
clear.  The  pine  cone  of  the  Vatican  and  the  wolf  of  the 
Lateran  were  reproduced  on  the  fountain  at  Aix-la-Chapelle. 
The  bronze  column  at  Hildesheim  faintly  echoes  the  great 
memorial  columns  of  Trajan  and  Marcus  Aurelius ;  so  does  the 
marble  column  at  Gaeta.  The  sarcophagi  at  Pisa  furnish 
models  for  Niccola  Pisano. 

Influence  of  the  Christian  City.  —  This  is  far  more  complex 
and  hard  to  measure.  Let  us  commence  by  the  more  material 
aspect :  the  artists  and  the  works  of  art. 

The  earliest  instances  are  in  the  century  of  Gregory  the 
Great.  The  illuminated  codex  called  the  Cambridge  Gospels 
contain  a  series  of  pictures  by  a  Koman  artist  that  were  to  serve 
^/  S.  Augustine  and  the  other  missionaries  to  the  Anglo-Saxons 
as  models  for  church  frescos.  When  the  hierarchy  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  church  had  been  established  directly  from  Rome 
by  the  mission  of  Theodore,  made  first  archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
the  promulgation  of  a  Roman  code  of  laws,  the  adoption  of 
Roman  music  and  liturgy,  were  followed  by  the  importation  of 
works  of  art  and  artists  from  Rome  by  the  two  most  prominent 
Anglo-Saxon  prelates.  Benedict  Biscop,  says  Bede,  on  the 
occasion  of  two  of  his  visits  to  Rome  took  back  collections  of 
paintings.  Wilfrid  of  York  brought  over  masons  and  artificers 
from  Rome  to  build  and  decorate  churches  at  York,  Ripon  and 
Hexham  (709).  It  would  seem  fair  to  conclude  that  the  Anglo- 
Saxons,  who  had  been  quite  innocent  of  any  artistic  endeavors 
before  their  conversion,  owed  mainly  to  Roman  models,  with 
some  Gallic  assistance,  the  style  of  their  best  early  works. 

Some  instances  of  the  sort  occur  in  the  Carlovingian  and 
Othonian  eras  for  France  and  Germany.  Pipin  gets  from  Rome 
its  church  music.  The  great  monasteries  supply  themselves 
with  the  sacred  vestments  made  in  Rome  :  S.  Wandrille  (Fon- 
tanella),  in  c.  822,  receives  some  caj^pas  JRomanas  and  some 
cingula  Romano  opere  facta.  S.  Riquier  (Centula),  in  c.  820, 
receives  albas  Romanas  cum  amictis.  More  important  still, 
Odo,  one  of  the  architects  of  Charlemagne's  cathedral  of  Aix-la- 
Chapelle,  seems  to  have  been  a  Roman. 

Under  Pope  Leo  IV  Rome  returned  the  compliment  to  Ra- 


ARTISTIC  INFLUENCE  OF  ROME  381 

venna,  who  had  in  other  days  (fifth  to  sixth  centuries)  sent  her 
artists,  by  sending  an  architect  and  workmen  to  restore  S. 
Apollinare  in  Classe. 

The  diffusion  of  the  practical  handbook  of  painting  by  the 
Eoraan  Heraclius  undoubtedly  spread  the  methods  of  the 
Koman  school.  The  Italian  painter  John,  whom  the  Emperor 
Otho  II  took  to  Germany,  is  possibly  the  same  John  who  had 
decorated  with  his  brother  the  basilica  of  S.  Elia  near  Nepi 
(middle  tenth  century).  In  so  far  as  the  painter  Methodius 
(ninth  century)  is  concerned,  who  painted  the  terrifying  Last 
Judgment  for  the  Bulgarians,  he  is  claimed  by  both  Rome  and 
Byzantinism,  though  Rome  certainly  ended  by  possessing  him 
and  some  of  his  works. 

There  must  have  been  numerous  cases  of  a  close  imitation  in 
other  places  of  works  in  Rome.  I  will  cite  a  very  clear  in- 
stance, the  frescos  of  the  church  of  S.  Piero  a  Grado  near  Pisa, 
executed  c.  1300.  On  the  walls  of  its  nave  are  three  series  of 
paintings :  above  a  row  of  angels  in  architectural  framework ; 
then  the  main  body  of  the  decoration  in  oblong  compositions, 
representing  the  lives  and  martyrdoms  of  SS.  Peter  and  Paul ; 
finally,  just  above  the  columns,  a  series  of  portraits  of  the 
Popes.  It  has  recently  been  proved  that  these  scenes  from  the 
lives  of  the  apostles  were  copied  literally  from  frescos  in  the 
atrium  of  S.  Peter.  The  portraits  of  the  Popes  were  taken 
from  those  in  the  same  church  or  at  the  Lateran  or  S.  Paul. 

The  cycles  at  S.  Francis  of  Assisi  seem  planned  by  Cavallini. 

In  the  opinion  of  Crowe  and  Cavalcaselle  the  frescos  that 
fill  the  baptistery  at  Parma,  the  most  important  of  their  time 
(c.  1250)  in  Northern  Italy,  are  by  a  master  trained  in  the 
Roman  school.  These  two  are  examples  of  the  way  Umbria, 
Tuscany,  Emilia  and  Lombardy  were  invaded. 

During  this,  its  most  flourishing  period,  the  Roman  school 
even  made  an  occasional  inroad  with  its  own  artists  into  the 
very  central  strongholds  of  other  provincial  schools.  Of  this 
the  church  of  S.  Frediano  at  Lucca  is  an  instance.  No  Ital- 
ian city  had  a  more  characteristic  mediaeval  art  than  Lucca. 
It  is  a  Tuscan  art,  of  course,  —  the  twin  brother  of  that  of  Pisa. 
Of  its  churches  none  has  been  more  studied  than  S.  Frediano  ; 


382  CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  MONUMENTS 

around  it  for  over  a  half-century  fought  the  battalions,  of  whom 
one  faction  asserted  that  it  was  a  shining  example  of  the  Lom- 
bard art  of  the  seventh  century,  while  the  other  consigned  it 
with  all  the  rest  of  such  so-called  early  Lombard  churches  to 
the  less  rare  but  far  more  civilized  atmosphere  of  the  twelfth 
century  —  and  the  latter  have  been  proved  correct.  In  fact, 
the  present  church  is  now  shown  to  have  been  built  between 
1112  and  1147  or  shortly  after.  The  great  peculiarity  of  its  ex- 
terior is  the  large  mosaic  picture  that  fills  the  upper  part  of  its 
facade,  representing  the  Resurrection  of  Christ,  who  is  seated 
on  a  throne  and  is  being  carried  up  by  two  angels,  while  the 
twelve  apostles  stand  below  and  gaze.  To  what  school  does  this 
work  belong  ?  A  reckless  restoration  in  1829  has  made  it  some- 
what difficult  to  do  more  than  to  assign  it  to  the  latter  part  of 
the  twelfth  century  or  later.  The  choice  is  practically  between 
the  Venetian  and  the  Roman  schools.  The  preference  for  Rome, 
where  the  custom  of  decorating  the  facades  was  then  so  common, 
becomes  a  practical  certainty  when  one  examines  the  remains 
of  the  mosaic  pavement  in  the  choir.  Barbarously  as  it  was 
transformed  by  the  Barocco  period,  it  is  a  Roman  pavement. 
No  one  can  mistake  the  subtle  or  graded  designs  and  colors  of 
the  Venetian  pavements  for  the  strong  contrasts  and  heavy  out- 
lines and  uniform  coloring  of  the  Romans  which  here  appear. 
No  other  church  at  Lucca  or  in  this  region  has  any  pavement 
like  it.  It  is  an  accident,  — an  accident  which  makes  us  con- 
clude that  the  figured  mosaics  of  the  faqade  were  also  Roman. 
Pope  Paschal  II,  when  he  came  to  Lucca  in  1105,  established 
close  connections  between  S.  Frediano  and  the  Lateran.  Pope 
Eugenius  III  consecrated  the  church  in  1147.  Perhaps  in  the 
latter's  train  came  the  Roman  mosaicists  who  helped  complete 
the  decoration  of  the  church.  We  cannot  say  whether  to  them 
also  was  due  the  choir-screen  and  pulpits  which  the  Barocco 
prelates  destroyed,  or  the  connection  may  be  due  to  Pope 
Lucius  III  (1181-1185),  who  was  a  native  of  Lucca. 

There  was  another  and  more  general  connection  with  Rome. 
The  churches  of  Lucca  are  in  several  cases  built  with  antique 
columns  and  capitals ;  no  Tuscan  city  shows  such  aprofuseness 
of  antique  material.     Where  did  it  come  from  ?     It  has  been 


ARTISTIC  INFLUENCE  OF  ROME  383 

supposed  from  the  antique  buildings  of  the  city  itself,  especially 
from  the  amphitheatre  —  a  purely  imaginary  and  unsupported 
supposition.  S.  Giovanni,  the  old  cathedral,  S.  Frediano  itself, 
S.  Alessandro,  S.  Maria  forisportam,  are  all  built  with  Eoman 
columns  largely  topped  with  Roman  capitals.  Why  should 
they  not  have  been  all  brought  from  Rome  ?  When  cities  on 
all  sides,  including  Pisa  itself,  were  allowed  by  the  Popes  to  use 
Rome  as  a  quarrying-ground,  there  is  every  reason  to  suppose 
that  Lucca,  the  favorite  residence  of  the  Countess  Matilda,  the 
greatest  benefactor  of  the  Papacy,  Avould  long  continue  to  feel 
the  benefits  of  Papal  favor. 

No  Roman  artist,  however,  travelled  as  far  as  did  the  Pietro 
who  went  to  England  in  company  with  Archbishop  Ware  to 
decorate  Westminster  Abbey.  It  was  a  most  important  com- 
mission. Ware  went  several  times  to  Rome ;  in  1258-1259,  in 
1267  and  in  1276.  The  decoration  of  Westminster  choir,  and 
the  placing  there  of  the  body  of  Edward  the  Confessor  in  a 
magnificent  shrine,  had  been  planned  as  early  as  1265.  Ware 
probably  brought  back  Pietro  from  Rome  or  Viterbo  in  1267. 
The  work  was  completed  and  the  relics  of  the  Confessor  trans- 
ferred on  October  13,  1269.     The  inscription  read  :  — 

ANNO  MILLENO   DOMINI  CUM    SEXAGENO 

ET  BIS  CENTENO   CUM  COMPLETO  QUASI  DENG 

HOC  OPUS  EST    FACTUM   QUOD  PETRUS    DUXIT    IN    ACTUM 

ROMANUS  CIVIS    HOMO  CAUSAM  NOSCERE  SI  VIS 

REX  FUIT  HENRICUS    SANCTI  PRESENTIS  AMICUS. 

A  Roman  citizen  had  the  honor  to  execute  the  most  sacred, 
the  national  shrine  of  England!  He  also  did  the  tomb  of  King 
Henry  III  himself,  and  of  others  in  the  Abbey,  the  mosaic 
pavement  of  the  choir,  and  probably  also  that  in  the  same 
style  at  Canterbury,  where  the  shrine  of  the  martyred  primate 
seems  to  be  by  the  same  hand.  The  inscription  of  the  West- 
minster pavement  read  :  — 

TERTIUS    HENRICUS   REX,    URBS,    ODERICUS,  ET 
ABBAS    HOS    COMPOSUERE    PORPHIRETICOS    LAPIDES.^ 

1  It  is  generally  supposed  that  the  Petrus  of  the  first  inscription  and  the 
Oderious  of  the  second  were  two  distinct  Roman  artists,  but  as  the  man  who 


384  CLASSIFICATION  OF   THE  MONUMENTS 

A  third  inscription,  placed  in  1283  on  the  tomb  of  Ware  him- 
self, shows  that  all  the  marbles  used  for  the  pavement  and  the 
monuments  were  brought  from  Rome,  for  it  expressly  states 
that  Ware  rests  under  the  stones  which  he  himself  brought 
from  the  city,  "  TJrbs  "  :  hie  portat  lapides  quos  hue  portavit  ah 
urhe.  To  this  evidently  alludes  also  the  "  Urbs ''  of  the  previous 
inscription,  expressing  Rome's  share  in  the  work. 

There  are  traces  both  in  Germany  and  France  of  the  presence 
of  Roman  artists,  though  nothing  nearly  as  important  as  the 
Westminster  work.  There  is,  for  instance,  the  mosaic  tomb  of 
Archbishop  Gero  of  Cologne  (1976),  and  the  mosaic  pavement 
of  a  church  in  Cologne  ;  some  details  of  "  Cosmati "  work  from 
Vilseck  (Oberpfalz),  now  in  the  Industrial  Museum  at  Munich  ; 
and  a  fragment  in  the  Cluny  Museum  in  Paris. 

These  examples,  of  indifferent  periods,  will  be  sufficient. 
The  Roman  artist  was  an  easy  traveller.  In  another  chapter 
I  have  traced  his  normal  peripatetic  orbit  in  Central  Italy. 
Elsewhere  I  also  refer  to  his  final  achievements  in  France  and 
Italy,  when  the  departure  of  the  Popes  from  Rome  entailed  the 
dispersal  of  the  school  to  wherever  they  could  find  patrons. 
Under  Painting  it  has  appeared  how  predominant  not  only  in 
the  sphere  of  thought,  but  in  style  and  technique,  was  the  in- 
fluence of  the  Roman  school  led  by  Cavallini  and  his  contem- 
poraries. 

Aside  from  the  actual  work  of  Roman  artists,  the  mark  of 
the  school  was  stamped  even  more  widely  if  we  study  the 
marble  incrustations  of  Tuscany  in  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth 
centuries,  and  the  spread  through  Central  Italy  of  the  imitation 
of  antique  ornament  and  orders.  It  is  too  broad  a  subject  to 
be  treated  here.  It  is  even  more  impossible  to  express  fully 
the  internal  or  spiritual  influence  of  Roman  artistic  ideals,  but 
no  one  can,  I  think,  read  this  book  without  understanding  that 
they  reach  down  to  the  roots  of  all  Italian  mediaeval  art  when 
it  sought  to  express  religious  and  symbolic  thought. 

worked  at  Viterbo  called  himself  Petnis  Oderici  and  as  it  was  sometimes  the 
habit  to  call  a  man  by  his  patronymic,  I  am  inclined  to  consider  them  one  and 
the  same. 


INDEX 


SS.  Abdon  and  Sennen,  basilica,  50, 
105. 

Acquasparta,  Card.,  tomb,   251,  252. 

Adeodatus,  92. 

Adeodatus,  son  of  Cosmatus,  artist; 
see  Deodatus. 

Administration  of  Rome:  ecclesi- 
astical, 39;  civic,  4,  95,  125,  128, 
130,  137,  139. 

S.  Adriano,  basilica,  83,  90,  94. 

Emilia,  basilica,  34. 

^milianae,  titulus,  39. 

S.  Agata  in  Suburra,  basilica,  67, 
94,  98. 

Agatho,  engineer,  110. 

S.  Agnese,  basilica,  24,  54,  90,  167; 
mosaics,  283 ;  frescos,  328 ;  metal 
work,  233;   cemetery,  43. 

Alaric's  sack  of  Rome,  42,  52,  54, 
59,  60. 

Alba  Fucense,  176,  370. 

Albano,  S.  Maria  della  Stella,  frescos, 
278. 

Alberic  and  his  palace,  113,  115,  209. 

AlenQon,  Card.,  tomb,  253. 

S.  Alessandro,  basilica,  43. 

S.  Alessio,  basilica,  crypt,  167;  bell- 
tower,  189. 

Alexander  III,  Pope,  130. 

Alexius,  artist,  345. 

Alphanus,  Papal  chamberlain,  135. 

Altar,  180. 

Ambone,  see  Pulpit. 

S.  Ambragio  in  Pescheria,  basilica, 
254. 

Ammianus  Marcellinus,  38. 

Anaclete,  antipope,  127. 

Anagni,  cathedral,  131,  139,  355, 
375;  frescos,  324;  decoration, 
324,  376;  ciboria,  179;  paschal 
candlestick,  177,  240,  376;  bell- 
tower,  189. 


S.  Anastasia,  basilica,  40,  80. 

Anastasius,  Pope,  50. 

Ancher,  Card.,  tomb,  246. 

S.  Andrea,  churches,  71;   monastery, 

81 ;   oratory,  96. 
S.  Andrea  in  Catabarbara,    basilica, 

66,  67,  276. 
S.  Andrea  in  Flumine,  see  Ponzano. 
Andreas,  artist,  356,  370. 
S.  Angelo  in  Formis,  basilica,  319. 
S.  Angelo  in  Pescheria,  basilica,  94, 

101. 
Angels  in  art,  54,  74,  292,  299,  300, 

305,  312,  324,  329,  sqq. 
Angelus,  son  of  Paulus,  artist,  350. 
Anglo-Saxons     in     Rome,     82,     98; 

their  art,  380. 
Anguillara  Palace,  221. 
Annibaldi,  Riccardo,    tomb,  244. 
Anthemius,  Emperor,  65. 
Antoninus    and     Faustina,     temple, 

see  S.  Lorenzo  in  Miranda. 
Antonio  di  Rabotto,  architect,  372. 
Apocalypse    in    art,    267,    277,    300, 

311,  312,  323,  324. 
S.  ApoUinare,  basilica,  90. 
Apostles,    the    twelve,    in  art,   267- 

270,  276,  293,  318,  319,  324,  327, 

333,  338. 
Apostles,  basilica  of  the,  44,  86,  110, 

282: 
Appropriation  of  ancient  monuments 

by  the  Church,  34,  66,  83,  85,  89. 
Arcades  and  architraves,  26,  170. 
Architects,  36,  38,  48,  50,  105,   110, 

122,  347;    see  also  under  Lauren- 

tius,  Paulus,  Vassallettus,  etc. 
Architecture  in   Rome,    8,    155-221, 

and  passim. 
Aries,    53;     its   school  of    sculpture, 

228. 
Army  of  Rome,  95. 


2c 


385 


386 


INDEX 


Arnolfo,  artist,  11,  237,  241,  243  sqq. 
Artists,  see  Roman  artists. 
Ascension  in  art,  307. 
Assisi,    S.    Francis,    basilica,  frescos, 

143,  331,  340-342,  381. 
Atrium,  26,  43,  157  sqq. 
Attila,  62. 
Avignon,  147,  148. 
Azo,  artist.  349. 

S.  Balbina,  42,  161,  186. 

Baptistery  :  Lateran,  59 ;  Vatican,  27. 

Barocco  destruction  of  churches,  9, 1 1. 

S.  Bartolommeo  all'  Isola,  121,  320, 
331,351;   well-head,  235. 

Basilicas,    24  sqq.,    155  sqq.,    passim 
and  Index  List. 

Bassus,     Junius,     basilica,     22,     66, 
70,  207. 

Belisarius,  76. 

Bell-casting,  350. 

Bell-towers,  100,  189  sqq. 

Benedict  II,  93. 

Benedict  XII,  tomb,  253. 

Bentivenga,  painter,  349. 

S.  Bibiana,  136. 

Biscop,  Bishop  Benedict,  380. 

Bizanti  titulus,  39;    see  Pammachius. 

Boniface  I,  55. 

Boniface  IV  and  V,  89,  249. 

Boniface  VIII,  144-145;    chapel  and 
tomb,  249. 

S.  Bonifacio,  94. 

Borghetto  Castle,  220. 

Borgo    (Burgus  Saxonum),    82,    110, 
219. 

Brancaleone,  139. 

Braye,  Card,  de,  tomb,  245. 

Brickwork,  156. 

Bronze    sculpture,     224 ;    see    Metal 
sculpture. 

Burial,  30,  40. 

Burning  of  Rome  by  Guiscard,   116 

sqq. 
^Byzantine  Rome,  3,  6,  79-81;  art, 
80,  88,  93,  98,  99,  103,  281-300, 
304,318,322,326,328,336;  cos- 
tume, 283;  influence  at  court,  81; 
suzerainty,  76-81 ;  monasteries, 
79-81,  99,  101,  108,  pass.;  head  of 
empress,  227. 


S.  Calixtus,  catacomb  frescos,  278, 
289,  300. 

Cahxtus  II,  125. 

Cambridge  Gospels,  380. 

Campanile,  see  Bell-tower. 

S.  Candida,  basilica,  105. 

Capitals,  9,  26,  63,  67,  69,  74,  88,  109, 
122,  161,  169. 

Capocci  fortress,  221. 

Caraccioli,  Card.,  tomb,  242. 

Carlovingian  culture,  107. 

Casamari  monastery,  373. 

Cassiodorus,  70. 

Catacombs,  17,  40;  violation  of, 
101;  restoration,  105;  frescos, 
258,  278,  279,  287,  289,  295,  300. 

Catalogue  (ancient)  of  buildings  in 
Rome,  see  NotUia,  Einsiedeln, 
Mirahilia. 

Catino,  churches,  367. 

Cavallini,  Pietro,  painter,  11,  143, 
149,  331  sqq.,  339. 

S.  Cecilia,  basilica,  40,  127;  frescos, 
328,  333 ;  portico,  161 ;  bell-tower, 
189;  cloister,  197;  paschal  candle- 
stick, 177;    ciborium,  248. 

Celestine,  57,  58. 

Cemeterial  basilicas,  24. 

Cemeteries,  open-air,  30,  43. 

S.  Cesareo,  80,  176. 

Charities,  41,  94. 

Charles  of  Anjou,   141 ;   statue,  240. 

Choir,  166;    screen,  174  sqq. 

Christianus,  artist,  349. 

Church  of  Circumcision  and  of  Gen- 
tiles in  art,  267,  272-273. 

Churches  and  chapels  (earliest),  17, 
32,  42. 

Ciboria,  60,  178. 

Cimabue,  143,  331. 

Circus  Maximus,  31. 

S.  Ciriaco,  basilica,  90. 

Civil  architecture,  207  sqq. 

Civita  Castellana,  cathedral,  131, 
354-355;  portico,  159,  162,  170; 
mosaic,  327 ;  choir  seats,  355,  369 ; 
bell-tower,  193. 

Clement  IV,    tomb,  242. 

S.  Clemente,  39,  47,  121,  126,  127; 
choir-screen,  73,  74 ;  atrium^  158- 
160,    161;     pulpit,    176;     paschal 


INDEX 


387 


candlestick,  177;    tabernacle,  253; 

frescos,  300,  306,  314  sqq.,  320. 
Clergy,  81,  95,  113,  118;    patrons  of 

art,  127,  135. 
Cloisters,  194  sqq. 
Cologne,  Roman  artists  in,  384. 
Colonies,  foreign,  in  Rome,  82. 
^g^  Columns,   antique,    use    in  churches, 
"^^       26,  59,  168-169,  378  sqq. 

Commodilla,    catacomb,    73,   74,   93, 

96,  279. 
Commune  of  Rome,    130,    136,    137, 

139,  141,  144. 
Consalvo,  Card.,  tomb,  251-252. 
Constans  II,  92. 

Constantia,      Constantina,       mauso- 
leum   and    sarcophagus,     29,     30, 

64,  260  sqq. 
Constantine,    17;     his    basilica,    19; 

arch,    20,     226;      Janus,     19,     22; 

thermap,    19;     statues    and    busts, 

19,    225;     looting    of    Rome,    22; 

church   building,    22-31 ;     restora- 
tions, 22. 
Constantine,  Pope,  97. 
Constantinian  art,  18. 
Constantinian     baptistery,     64 ;     see 

Lateran. 
Constantinople,     22,     36,     37,     53; 

church  pavements,  172. 
Constantius,  44. 
Consuls,  statues  of,  226. 
Conti,  Torre  dei,  135,  221. 
Conxolus,  painter,  326. 
Cori,  paschal  candlestick,  373, 
S.  Cornelius,  basilica,  64. 
Corneto,   S.   Maria  di  Castello,    133, 

360. 
Corporations  of  artisans,  23,  37,  52, 

54,  62,  71,  343  sqq. ;  see  Guilds  and 

Schola. 
Corruption  in  early  Christian  Rome, 

33,  38. 
S.  Cosimato,  127,  158,  199,  279. 
SS.  Cosma  e  Damiano,  73,  94,  276, 

351. 
Cosmas,  artist,  139,  201,  354,  375. 
Cosmati,  artists,  so  called,  325,  356; 

see  Cosmas,  Cosmatus,  etc. 
Cosmatus,  artist,  325,  356. 
Costanza,  see  Constantia. 


Councils,    oecumenical,    painting    of, 

97;   on  painting,  256. 
Crescentianw  titidus,  39,  50. 
Crescentius,   115;   so-called  house  of, 

209 ;  see  Nicholas. 
S.  Crisogono,  40,  127,  161. 
S.  Croce  in  Gerusalemme,  24,  97,  128, 

161,  186,  351. 
Cross  in  art,   268,  271,  272,  281,  286, 

294,  300,  320,  323,  337. 
Crucifixion  in  art,  231,  287,  294,  295, 

296,  299,  314,  318. 
Curia,  34,  83 ;  see  S.  Adriano. 
Curiosum,  see  Notitia. 
Cyriaci  titidus,  40. 
Cyriades,  architect,  35. 

S.  Damasus,  40,  45,  46. 

Deacons,  39. 

Decay  of  monuments,  63,  83,  85. 

Demetrias,  63. 

Deodatus,  Deodato,  artist,  149,  250, 

356-357. 
Devastation  of  Rome  by  Huns  and 

Vandals,   51   sqq.,    62;    Lombards, 

100. 
Diaconal  churches,  41,  94. 
Diocletian :     baths,    20 ;     legislation, 

37;    sculpture,  226. 
Dominican  order,  137. 
Domnus,  93. 

Doors  and  doorways,  164. 
Drudus,  artist,  164,  355,  375-376. 
Durand,  Bishop,  tomb,  251-252. 

Einsiedeln  Itinerary,  116. 

Elders,    twenty-four,    277,  301,  305, 

311. 
S.    Elia    (near    Nepi),    basilica    and 

frescos,    112,    164,   310;    ciborium, 

178;    bell-tower,  193. 
Emigration  from  Rome,  36,  52,  62, 

77,  78. 
Endowment  of  churches,  30. 
Equitii    titidus,    40-41,     70;    see    S. 

Martino  di  Monti. 
S.  Erasmo,  81,  93. 
Estates  near  Rome,  52,  76. 
Eudoxia,  58,  61,  62. 
Eudoxice  titidus,  40,  62;  see  S.  Pietro 

in  Vincoli. 


388 


INDEX 


Eugenius  III,  128. 
S.  Euphemia,  93,  95-96. 
S.  Euplus,  oratory,  92. 
S.  Eusebio,  40,  161. 
S.  Eustachio,  94. 

Evangelists    and    their   symbols    in 
art,  267,  272,  278-307,  312  sqq. 

Fagades  of  churches,  162  sqq. 
Falleri,  S.  Maria  di,  133,  369. 
Families  of  Roman  artists,  344  sqq., 

357. 
Farfa,  monastery,  97. 
FascioloB  titulus,  40. 
Fathers  of  the  Church,  on  painting, 

254  sqq. 
S.  Felicita,  basilica,  55,  56,  278. 
S.  Felix,  basilica,  105. 
Felix  IV,  73. 

Felix,  antipope,  basilica,  45. 
Ferentino :    cathedral,     pulpit,    176; 

paschal    candlestick,     177;     cibo- 

rium,  179;    Roman  artists  at,  350, 

374. 
Festivals,  pagan  and  Christian,  39. 
Feudal    nobility,    4,    95,     115,    209, 

218. 
Fieschi,  Card.,  tomb,  241. 
Florence,  Roman  art   in  baptistery, 

342. 
Foligno,  Roman  artists  in,  366. 
Fondi,  cathedral,  ciborium,  362. 
Foreign  artists  in  Rome,  349. 
Formosus,  Pope,  110. 
Foronovo,  cathedral,  367. 
Fortresses,    4,     110-113,     115,     117, 

216  sqq. 
Fossanova  monastery,  372. 
S.  Francesca  Romana,  see    S.  Maria 

Nuova. 
Franciscan  order,  37. 
Frangipani  fortresses,  221. 
Frankish  alliance,  100. 
Franks  in  Rome,  82. 
French  influence  in  Rome,  139,  141. 
Frescos,  55,   72,   73,  87,   89,  92,  93, 

96,   100,  101,  105,    110,    112,  130, 

137,  143,  144,  254-342. 
Fulda  monastery,  98. 
Furniture  of  basilicas,  168,  174  sqq.; 

see  Ciboria,  Pulpit,  etc. 


Gaeta,  sculptured  column,  236. 

Galla  Placidia,  53,  57-58. 

Galleries  in  churches,  88,  167. 

Generosa,  Catacomb,  47,  289. 

Genseric,  62. 

SS.  Gervasius  and  Protasius,  55. 

S.  Giorgio  in  Velabro,  93,  94,  161, 
173,  334;    bell-tower,  189-191. 

Giotto,  143,  331,  333,  336,  342. 

SS.  Giovanni  e  Paolo  :  house  and  fres- 
cos, 47,  209,  277,  296;  basiUca,  40, 
130,  162,  164,  182;  bell-tower,  189. 

S.  Giovanni  a  Porta  Latina,  128, 
161,   164. 

Giovanni  (Cosmati,  etc.),  artist,  see 
John. 

Gislebertus,  artist,  349. 

Goldsmith  work,  sec  Metal  Sculpture. 

Gonsalvo,  see  Consalvo. 

Gothic  war,  76-77. 

Goths  as  preservers  of  Rome,  71,  75. 

Grain  Exchange,  34,  85. 

Granaries  of  the  Church,  85,  94. 

Gratian,  arch  of,  35. 

Greek  monks,  79-81,  93,  98;  clergy 
and  Popes,  81,  95;    language,  82. 

S.  Gregorio,  ciborium,  178. 

Gregory  the  Great,  78,  88,  97. 

Gregory  II,  97. 

Gregory  III,  99,  297. 

Gregory  IV,  109. 

Gregory  IX,  137. 

Grottaferrata  monastery,  319,  371; 
pavement,  173;    font,  235. 

Guido,  painter,  122,  349. 

Guilds,  37,  52-53,  62,  211,  343. 

Guiscard,  Robert,  116,  118. 

Guitto,  son  of  Nicolaus,  artist,  361. 

Hadrian  I,  103  sqq.,  299. 
Hadrian  V,  tomb,  242,  244. 
Helena,  23;    sarcophagus,  29. 
Hell  in  art,  329,  334,  335,  342. 
Heraclius,  painter,  308,  349,  381. 
S.  Hermes,  basilica,  88. 
Hilary,  64. 

Hildebrand,  6,  118  sqq. 
Hildesheim,  bronze  column,  236. 
Hippolytus,  43. 

Honorius,  57;  walls  and  gates  of 
Rome,  and  arch,  35. 


INDEX 


389 


Honorius  I,  89. 

Honorius  II,  126. 

Honorius  III,  136. 

Honorius  IV,  143;    tomb,  247. 

Hormizdas,  72,  74. 

Hospices  and  hospitals,  71. 

Iconoclastic  persecution,  80,  98,  256. 
Ilicius,  49-50. 

Impressionism  in  painting,  265,  287. 
Influence  of  Roman  art,  7,  132,  346, 

378  sqq.  , 

Innocent  I,  51. 
Innocent  II,  127. 
Innocent  III,  134-136. 
Interior  of  basilicas,  165. 
S.  Ippolito,  see  Hippolytus. 
Ivo,  artist,  356. 

Jacobus,  Franciscan  artist,  342. 
Jacobus,  son  of  Cosmatus,  artist,  201, 

356,  376. 
Jacobus,    son   of   Laurentius,    artist, 

201,  327,  351,  353,  355,  369,  373. 
Januarius,  architect,  105. 
S.  Jerome,  38. 
Johannes,  see  John. 
Johannipolis,  suburb  of  Rome,   111. 

219. 
John  I,  72. 
John  VII,  96,  286. 
John  VIII.  110. 

John,  artist,  370;    sculptor,  349. 
John  of  Crema,  135. 
John,  painter,  313,  349,  381. 
John,  son  of  Blasius,  artist,  367. 
John,  son  of  Cosmatus,   artist,  249, 

251,  356. 
John,  son  of  Guitto,  artist,  362. 
John,  son    of    Nicolaus,  artist,  361, 

362. 
John,  son  of  Paulus,  artist,  350. 
SS.  John  and  Paul,  see  SS.  Giovanni  e 

Paolo. 
S.   John  Lateran,   24,   64,    100,    106, 

110,  112,  125,  128,  130,  135,  146, 

148;     baptistery,    59,     270,    274; 

S.  Venanzio,  91,  285;    bell-towers, 

190;    Sancta  Sanctorum,  136,  142, 

173,      187,     329;       portico,     351; 

cloister,    137,   202  sqq.,    238,    355; 


ciborium,  231,  232,  253;  frescos 
and  mosaics,  112,  336-338;  sculp- 
tures, 250;  triclinium,  297;  medi- 
aeval description,  210;  frescos 
309. 

Julia,  basilica,  34,  59. 

Julius,  Pope,  43. 

Justinian,  76,  77 

Last  Judgment,  328,  329,  333,  335, 

342. 
Lateran,  see  S.  John  L. 
Laurentius,  antipope,  72. 
Laurentius,  artist,  162,  346,  353,  369, 

373. 
Laurentius,  architect,  348. 
S.  Lawrence,  see  S.  Lorenzo. 
S.  Leo,  62-64. 
Leo  III,  106. 
Leonine  City,  see  Boi^o. 
Leopardus,  49,  50,  54. 
Leprignano,  choir-screen,  175,  368. 
Liberius,  44. 
Liber  Pontificalis,  22,  31,  43,  46,  55, 

59,  78. 
Location  of  churches,  39. 
Lombards   in    Rome,    82;     si^e    of 

Rome,  100,  103. 
S.  Lorenzo,  chapel,  309. 
S.  Lorenzo  in  Damaso,  basiliea,  40, 

46. 
S.  Lorenzo  in  Agro    Verano   (=fuori 

le  Mura),  basilica,  24,  25,  32,  43, 

50,  58,  59,  60,  64,  87,  88,  100,  113, 

136,    167,  170,    185;     porch,    162; 

ciborium,   178,  350;    pulpits,   176; 

cloister,     135,     198;      tomb,    241; 

mosaics  and  frescos,  281,  327. 
S.    Lorenzo  in  Lucina,   40,   94,    121, 

128,  161,  170. 
S.  Lorenzo  in  Miranda,  83. 
Lucas,    son   of  Cosmas,   artist,    201, 

355,  376. 
Lucca,  churches,  381. 
S.  Lucia,  basilica,  90,  94. 
LucincB  titidus,  40. 
Lucius  II,  128. 
Lugnano,  S.  Maria  Assunta,  366. 

Majorian,  63. 
Manuscripts,  107,  380. 


390 


INDEX 


Marble  sculpture,  see  Sculpture. 

S.  Marc,  42. 

S.  Marcello,  40. 

SS.    Marcellinus   and   Peter,    24,    25, 

39,  90;    frescos,  278. 
S.  Marco,  basilica,  306,  351. 
Marcus  Romanus,  sculptor,  149. 
S.  Maria  Antiqua,  81,  86,  92,  94,  96, 

97,    100,    101,    173,    174,   291    sqq , 

297  sqq.,  318. 
S.  Maria  in  Aquiro,  94. 
S.  Maria  in  Aracoeli,   114,   176,   189, 

205,  353. 
S.  Maria  in  Cannapara,  83. 
S.  Maria  in  Capitolio,  see  S.  Maria  in 

Aracoeli. 
S.  Maria  in  Cosmedin,  34,  80,  85,  94, 

105,  121,  126,  159,  161,  169,  181, 

185,  300,  350;    choir-screen,    175; 

bell-tower,  189-191;    tomb,  241. 
S.  Maria  in  Domnica,  94,  304. 
S.  Maria  in  Foro,  83. 
S.  Maria  Maggiore,  32,  44,  59,   144, 

161,    171 ;     mosaics    and     frescos, 

264,  271,  330,  338;    presepe,  247; 

bell-tower,  190. 
S.  Maria  ad  Martyres,  83,  89,  94. 
S.  Maria  sopra  Minerva,  189, 
S.  Maria  in  Monticelli,  121,  320,  356. 
S.  Maria  Nuova,  129,  130,  161,  320. 
S.  Maria  in  Pallara,  115. 
S.  Maria  ad  Pineam,  171. 
S.  Maria  in  Porticu,  94. 
S.   Maria  Rotonda,   see  S.   Maria  ad 

Martyres. 
S.   Maria  in  Trastevere,   40,   44,   59, 

127,  135,  161,  171,  322,  332;    bell- 
tower,  193. 
S.  Maria  in  Via  Lata,  94. 
Marinianus,  64. 
Marmorarii,  344,  347  sqq. 
S.  Marta,  portal,  165. 
Martin  I,  92. 

S.  Martino  ai  Monti,  23,  69,  93,  299. 
Martyrs,    female,    in    art,    310,    311, 

323. 
Masonry,  157. 

Materials  in  architecture,  156. 
Matilda,  Countess,  124. 
Mausoleum,   of  Anicius  Probus,   27; 

of  Constantia,  28-30;    of  Helena, 


29;     of   Theodosian   dynasty,    27, 

100. 
Maximus,  49. 

Melania,  38;    her  palace,  207. 
Metal  work,  58,   60,   62,  86,  90,  96, 

99,  106,  224,  231  sqq. 
Methodius,  painter,  381. 
Military  architecture,    115,   216-221. 
Milizie,  Torre  delle,  221. 
MirabUia,  210. 
Missionaries,  103. 
Monasteries  :  at  S.  Peter,  27,  64,  100 ; 

at  S.  Sebastiano,  59;    at  S.  Paul, 

113;   at  S.  Lorenzo,  64;   Carlovin- 

gian,  107 ;  see  Byzantine,  Subiaco, 

SS.  Vincenzo  ed  Anastasio,  etc. 
Monastic  artists,  79-81,  99,  312,  343, 

380. 
Monastic  Rome,  2,  3,  59,  60,  79,  80, 

81,  113,  128. 
Montebono,  S.  Pietro,  193,  367. 
Monte     Cassino,      monastery,      122; 

pavement,  173. 
Mosaics,   27,  44,   54,   57-59,   64,   66, 

67,  73,  93,  96,  101,  109,  135,  259- 

342. 
Music,  108. 

Naples,    Roman  artists  in,    149;    S. 

Maria  Donna  Regina,  frescos,  334. 
Narni,  Roman  art  in,  366. 
Nepi,  cathedral,  133,  369. 
SS.   Nereo  ed  Achilleo,  basilica  and 

cemetery,  40,  47,  296. 
S.  Niccolo  in  Carcere,  94,  127. 
Nicholas  III,  142. 

Nicholas  IV,  144;  his  statue  (?),  237. 
Nicholas,  palace  of,  115,  209. 
Nicholas,  artist,  see  Nicolaus. 
Nicolaus,  painter,   349. 
Nicolaus,  son  of  Angelus,  artist,  236, 

351. 
Nicolaus,  son  of  Ranucius,  artist,  352, 

361. 
S.  Nicomedes,  basilica,  89. 
Ninfa,  ruins,  131,  373. 
Noble  families,  patrons  of  art,    133, 

189. 
Northern  nations  civilized  by  Rome, 

7. 
Notitia,  31. 


INDEX 


391 


Obertus,  goldsmith,  349. 

Odo,  architect,  380. 

Odoacer,  65. 

Orders  of  architecture,  169. 

Ordo,  210. 

Organization  of  Roman  people,   95, 

125,  139. 
Orsini,  144. 

Orvieto,  Roman  artists  in,  365,  379. 
Otho  III,  his  palace  and  tomb,  114, 

144,  209,  313. 

Pagan  art,  as  influencing  Christian 
art,  260. 

Pagan  temples  not  destroyed,  32,  33. 

Paganism  in  Christian  Rome,  2,  3,  6, 
18,  23,  33,  51. 

Painting,  11,  55,  143,  254-342; 
see  Mosaic,  Fresco. 

Palestrina,  cathedral,  372. 

Pallacinis,  titvlus  in,  40,  42. 

Palombara,  churches,  367;  S.  Gio- 
vanni in  Argentella,  178,  193. 

Pammachius,  Pammachi  titvlus,  39, 
48,  49 ;  see  SS.  Giovanni  e  Paolo. 

S.  Pancrazio,  basilica,  90,  105. 

Pantheon,  see  S.  Maria  ad  Martyres. 

Paparone  family,  134. 

Paradise  in  art,  321,  337. 

Paris,  Cosmati  work  in  Cluny  mu- 
seum, 384. 

Parish  churches,  39-41. 

Paschal  I,  106,  108-109. 

Paschal  II,  121  sqq.,  319. 

Paschal  candlestick,  176. 

Paul  I,  101. 

S.  Paul,  basilica  and  annexes,  24, 
25,  32,  47,  48,  58,  64,  65,  71,  111, 
113,  122,  129,  136,  148;  mosaics 
and  frescos,  274,  298,  318,  326; 
sculpture,  232;  ciborium,  245; 
paschal  candlestick,  177,  236,  351 ; 
cloister,  137,  204. 

S.  Paul,  church,  93. 

Paulinus,  54. 

Paulus,  artist,  122,  350,  352,  374. 

Pavements  of  basilicas,  171  sqq. 

Pelagius  I,  86. 

Pelagius  II,  87. 

S.  Peter,  basilica  and  annexes,  25, 
32,  64,  71,  88,  93,  94,  96,  100,  106, 


110,  119,  129,  135,  142,  148,  158; 

mosaics    and    frescos,   26,   64,   91, 

97,   135,  286,  308,  326,  336,  350; 

bell-tower,     190;      ciborium,    232; 

pulpit,    353;     sculpture,    99,    143, 

224,    233;     mediaeval    description, 

210. 
S.  Peter,  bronze  statue,  224 ;  marble 

statue,  143,  250. 
SS.  Peter  and  Paul,  statues,  237,  238; 

in   art,    267,    272,    274,    279,    281, 

303,  etc. 
Peter,  artist,  see  Petrus. 
Petrolinus,  painter,  122,  349. 
S.  Petronilla,  basilica,  43,  47,  48,  49 ; 

see  SS.  Nereo  ed  Achilleo. 
Petrus,     artist,     see    Cavallini,     and 

Vassallettus;    also,  204,    245,  356, 

383. 
Petrus  de  Capua,  199,  202. 
Petrus,  son  of  Cosmatus,  artist,  356. 
Petrus  de  Maria,  architect,  366. 
Petrus  Oderisi,  artist,  242,  356,  384. 
Petrus,  son  of  Paulus,  artist,  350. 
Petrus,     son     of     Ranucius,     artist, 

352,  361. 
Pierleone  fortresses,  221. 
Pietro,  artist,  see  Petrus. 
Pietro  da  Piperno,  Card.,  tomb,  251. 
S.  Pietro  in  Campo  di  Merlo,  basilica, 

93. 
S.  Pietro  in  Vincoli,  basilica,  40,  61, 

62,  286. 
Pillage  of  Rome,  62. 
Piperno,  cathedral,  372. 
Pipin,  100,  101. 
Pisa,  S.  Pietro  a  Grado,  frescos,  381 ; 

ancient  material  for  cathedral,  379. 
Placidia,  see  Galla. 
Plato,  Byzantine  curator,  97. 
Polychromy  in  sculpture,  250. 
Pf)ntianus,  cemetery,  50,  287. 
Ponzano,  S.  Andrea  in  Flumine,  113, 

361;    ciborium,  178. 
Popes,  portraits,  72,  279;    on  paint- 
ing, 256,  257. 
Population  of  Rome,  31,  32,  36,  52, 

53. 
Porch,  157  sqq. 

Portico,    157    sqq. ;    colonnaded   por- 
ticos, 29,  32,  105,  211. 


392 


INDEX 


Porticus  deorum  consentium,  35. 

Porto,  see  Pammachius. 

S.  Prassede,  basilica  and  annexes,  40, 
84,  108,  123,  170,  185;  mosaics, 
300  sqq.;  porch,  158;  pavement, 
173;  cloister,  195. 

S.  Praxedis,  see  S.  Prassede. 

Priests,  as  architects  and  superin- 
tendents, 50-51,  55,  63. 

S.  Prisca,  basilica,  40. 

Prophets  in  art,  248,  269,  272,  296, 
299,  301,  305,  323. 

Propylon,  see  Porch. 

Province,  work  of  Roman  artists  in, 
346,  359  sqq. 

S.  Pudentiana,  basilica,  49,  122,  165; 
mosaics,  267;    campanile,  191. 

Pudentis  titvlus,  40;  see  S.  Puden- 
tiana. 

S.  Pudenziana,  see  S.  Pudentiana. 

Pulpit,  174  sqq. 

SS.  Quattro  Coronati,  basilica,  90, 
129,  167,  350;  frescos  chapel  of 
S.  Silvestro,  328;  bell-tower,  189; 
cloister,  195. 

Rainerius,    builder,  348;    see   Ranu- 

cius. 
Ranucius,  artist,  352. 
Ravenna,  its  influence  on  Rome,  53, 

54,  57,  69,  82,  280-282;    sculpture 

at,  228. 
Relics,  transfer  of,  43-44,  101. 
Restoration :  of  ancient  buildings,  22, 

32,  34,  45,  71,  75,  77,  82,  83;    of 

Christian  Rome,  46,  103. 
Rhadagaisus,  35. 
Ricimer,  63,  65. 
Rignano,  S.  Abbondio,  312. 
Robigalia,  43. 
Rocca  di  Botte,  370. 
Roma  Dea,  51. 
Roman  artists,  see  Guilds,  Province, 

Naples,     Westminster,      Families, 

etc. ;   also  special  names,  and   21- 

23,  37,  343-358. 
Rome :    the   city  in  IV-V  centuries, 

31,  42,  53;    in  VII   century,  207- 

208;   in  XI  century,  116  sqq.,  209; 

in  XII  century,  121,  125,  128,  210; 


in  XIII  century,  142,  211;  in  XIV 

century,   146  sqq.,  213. 
Romulus,  temple,  83 ;  see  SS.  Cosma 

e  Damiano. 
SS.  Rufina  e  Secunda,    basilica,   47; 

chapel,  270. 
Rusutti,  Filippo,  artist,  150,  331,  340. 

S.  Saba,  church  and  frescos,  80,  84, 

86,  289,  290,  318;   porch,  163,  354. 
S.   Sabina,   church  and  mosaics,   40, 

59,   161,   170,   273;    carved  doors, 

230;    cloister,  200. 
Sancta  Sanctorum  Chapel   (see  Lat- 

eran),  325,  329. 
Saracen  raid,  111. 
Sarcophagi,  Christian,  53,  227  sqq. 
Sasso,  son  of  Paulus,  artist,  350. 
Sassovivo,  Roman  cloister,  205,  366. 
Saturn,  temple,  34. 
Schola,  74,  79,  82,  95,  344. 
Schola  Grceca,  79,  300. 
Sculpture,   53,  222-253;    decorative, 

12,  63,  69,  74,  106,  107,  123,  124, 

199,  346,  353. 
S.  Sebastian©,  46,  59,  93,  162;    ora- 
tory, 92. 
Secretarium  Senatus,   35,   83 ;  see  S. 

Martina. 
Segni,  cathedral,  373. 
Septimius   Severus,    marble   plan   of 

Rome,  31. 
Sepulchral     monuments,     241     sqq., 

251-252. 
Sergius  I,  95,  96. 
Sergius  III,  110. 

SS.  Sergius  and  Bacchus,  83,  94,  135. 
Sermoneta,   cathedral  and  churches, 

373. 
Sessorian    Palace    and    basilica,    see 

S.  Croce  in  Gerusalemme. 
Severinus,  90. 
Sezze,  cathedral,  373. 
Sicinini,  basilica,  45. 
Signatures  of  Roman  artists,  352. 
SS.  Silvestro  e  Martino,  see  S.   Mar- 

tino  ai  Monti. 
S.  Silvestro  in  Capite,  81,   101,  135, 

164. 
SS.  Simplicius,  Faustina,  and  Beatrix, 

basilica  and  relics,  47,  93. 


INDEX 


393 


Simplicius,  65,  66. 

S.  Sinforosa,  basilica,  49,  187. 

Siricius,  Pope,  47. 

S.  Sisto,  135. 

Sixtus  IV,  59-62. 

Soracte,  Mt.,  monastery  of  S.  Silves- 
tro,  99,  113. 

Soriano,  palace  of  Nicholas  III,  142. 

S.  Spirito  in  Sassia,  135. 

Spoliation  of  ancient  monuments, 
117,   142,   169,  345,  366,  378-379. 

Stefaneschi,  135. 

S.  Stefano,  164. 

S.  Stefano  Rotondo,  66,  92,  286. 

S.  Stefano  in  Via  Latina,  63. 

Stephen  II,  100. 

Stephen  III,  101. 

Stephen  V,  110. 

Stephen,  painter,  349. 

Stilicho,  35. 

Subiaco,  monastery  and  frescos,  97, 
219,  324  sqq.,  354-355;  bell- 
tower,  190;    cloister,  200. 

Surdis,  Card,  de,  tomb,  251-252. 

Sutri,  cathedral,  133,  368. 

Sylvester,  basilica,  23. 

Symmachus,  Pope,  71, 

Symmachus,  Prefect,  35. 

Tebaldi  fortress,  221. 
Temples,  not  destroyed,  34,  75,  83. 
Temporal  power,  3,  100,  107,  124. 
S.  Teodoro,  93,  282. 
Torracina,  cathedral,  131,  162;    bell- 
tower,  193. 
Textiles,  99,  108,  380. 
Theodore  of  Canterbury,  380. 
Thoodoric,  6,  68-75. 
Theodosius,  bronze  statue,  225. 
Theodotus,  101. 
Tigrinus,  63. 

Titvli,  see  Parish  churches. 
Tivoli,  churches,  309,  372. 
Toffia,  S.  Lorenzo,  367. 
S.  Tommaso  in  Formis,  327,  355. 
S.  Tommaso  in  Parione,  127. 
Torriti,  Jacopo,  artist,  331,  336   sqq. 
Toscanella,  churches,  323,  328,  363. 
Transfiguration  in  art,  296. 
S.  Tripho,  basilica,  115. 


Triumphal  arches,   20,   32,   35,   226; 

in  basilicas,  26. 
Tusculum,    counts   of,    their   palace, 

209. 

Urban  II,  120. 

Urban  VI,  tomb,  253. 

S.    Urbano    alia    Caffarella,    frescos, 

298,  313. 
Ursicinus,  55. 

Valentinian,  53,  57-59. 

Valentinian    bridge     and    arch,    35, 

225. 
S.  Valentinus,  basilica,  43,  92,  121; 

cemetery,  295. 
Valvisciolo,  monastery,  373. 
Vandalism,  10,  21,  85,  142,  379. 
Vassallettus,   family  of  artists,   202, 

236,  238-240,  351,  355,  373,  376. 
Vatican,  see  S.  Peter. 
Velletri,  cathedral,  372;  S.  Maria  del 

Trivio,  192-193,  372. 
S.  Venanzio,  chapel,  91,  285. 
Venice,  mediaeval  church  pavements, 

171. 
S.  Veronica,  chapel,  96,  286. 
Versatility  of  artists,  345. 
Vestals,  statues,  227. 
Vestina,  40,  41,  55;    Vestinoe  titvlus, 

see  SS.  Gervasius  and  Protasius. 
Vice,  Peter  de,  tomb,  243. 
Victor  III,  119. 
S.  Victor,  basilica,  105. 
Vicus  Patricius  portico,  50. 
Vilseck,  Cbsmati  work,  384. 
SS.  Vincenzo  e  Anastasio,  monastery, 

105,  128-129,  187;   cloister,  196. 
Vine,  262,  270,  271,  320,  339. 
S.  Vitale,  40,  94,  161. 
Viterbo,  Roman  artists  in,  193,  364. 

Walls,  105,  110,  111. 
Ware,  Bishop,  383. 
Westminster  Abbey,   Roman   artists 
at,  383-384. 

Xystus,  39. 

Zacharias,  99. 


K 


INDEX   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

I 

PAGE 

Ponte  Nomentano,  near  Rome  (Photo.  Anderson)        ....  4 

Basilica  of  Constantine,  restored            .......  19 

Basilica  of  Junius  Bassus,  wall  incrustations        .....  20 

Arch  of  Constantine     ..........  21 

Marble  choir-screen  of  S.  Martino  ai  Monti            .....  23 

S.  Peter,  restored          ..........  25 

S.  Peter,  plan  of  old  basilica         ........  26 

S.  Peter,  section  of  old  basilica    ........  27 

S.  Costanza  (mausoleum  of  Constantia),  section            ....  28 

S.  Costanza,  plan  ...........  29 

S.  Costanza,  interior               .........  30 

Basilica  Emilia,  restored     .........  34 

SS.  Nereo  ed  Achilleo            .........  41 

S.  Paul  before  the  fire            .........  47 

S.  Paul  after  the  fire  (Photo.  Anderson)        ......  48 

S.  Paul,  plan 49 

Hospital  of  Pammachius  at  Porto,  plan        ......  49 

S.  Felicita,  fresco           ..........  56 

S.  Sabina,  marble  incrustation     ........  57 

S.  Sabina,  interior         ..........  58 

Pierced  marble  windows  of  V  century           ......  60 

S.  Pietro  in  Vincoli,  interior          ........  61 

S.  Stefano,  capitals       ..........  63 

Lateran  baptistery        ..........  64 

S.  Stefano  Rotondo,  plan     .........  66 

S.  Stefano  Rotondo,  interior         ........  67 

Capitals  of  S   Martino,  the  Palatine  and  S.  Lorenzo     ....  69 

S.  Martino  ai  Monti,  interior         .          .          .      '    .          .          .          .          .  7D 

S.  Clemente,  choir-screen  restored         .......  72 

SS.  Cosma  e  Damiano,  mosaic  (Photo.  Anderson)         ....  73 

S.  Clemente,  capital  of  VI  century  (Photo.  Moscioni)  ....  74 

S.  Maria  Antiqua,  interior  (Photo.  Anderson)       .....  84 

S.  Lorenzo,  architrave  (Photo.  Moscioni)      ......  86 

S.  Peter,  Papal  throne 87 

S.  Agnese,  capital          ..........  88 

S.  Agnese,  interior  (Photo.  Anderson)            ......  91 

S.  Maria  in  Cosmedin,  choir-screen,  restored          .....  104 

Dalmatic  of  "Charlemagne"  at  S.  Peter       ......  108 

S.  Elia  (near  Nepi),  interior  (Photo.  Moscioni)     .  .         .  .  .112 

S.  Maria  in  Aracoeli,  interior  (Photo.  Moscioni)     .  .  .  .  .114 

S.  Saba,  interior,  in  process  of  excavation    .  .  .  .  .  .120 

395  ■ 


396  INDEX  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

S.  Maria  in  Cosmedin,  capitals  of  propylon  (Photo.  Moscioni) 
S.  Maria  in  Cosmedin,  slab  of  choir-screen  (Photo.  Moscioni) 

S.  Clemente,  plan 

S.  Clemente,  interior  restored        .... 

Lateran,  bird's-eye  view  restored  .  .  . 

S.  Maria  in  Trastevere,  interior    .... 

Ninfa,  ruins  of  mediaeval  town  (Photo.  Maldura) 

Civita  Castellana,  detail  of  main  portal  of  cathedral  (Photo.  Moscioni) 

S.  Lorenzo,  interior  of  main  basilica  (Photo.  Anderson) 

Cloister  of  S.  Paul  outside  the  walls  (Photo.  Alinar  ) 

Civita  Castellana,  choir-seats  of  cathedral  (Photo.  Moscioni) 

Sacred  vestment  at  Cathedral  of  Anagni 

Marble  statue  of  S.  Peter     ........ 

Tabernacle  of  main  altar,  Lateran  basilica  (Photo.  Moscioni) 

S.  Prassede,  propylon  ........ 

S.  Clemente,  propylon  ........ 

S.  Clemente,  atrium  and  fagade  (Photo.  Moscioni) 

S.  Lorenzo,  porch  and  fagade  (Photo.  Moscioni) 

S.  Saba,  portico  and  facade  ....... 

S.  Elia  (near  Nepi),  doorway  of  monastic  church  (Photo.  Moscioni) 
S.  Marta,  doorway  (Photo.  Moscioni)  ..... 

SS.  Vincenzo  ed  Anastasio,  exterior      ...... 

Civita  Castellana,  main  portal  of  cathedral  (Photo.  Moscioni) 
S.  Maria  Maggiore,  interior  ....... 

S.  Lorenzo,  interior  of  smaller,  rear  basilica  .... 

S.  Clemente,  interior,  present  condition  (Photo.  Anderson) 

S.  Maria  in  Trastevere,  section  of  architrave  (Photo.  Moscioni)    . 

S.  Clemente,  pavement  of  nave  (Photo.  Moscioni) 

Ferentino,  pulpit  of  cathedral  restored  ..... 

S.  Maria  in  Cosmedin,  ambone  (Photo.  Moscioni) 

Alba  Fucense,  ambone  at  S.  Pietro  (Photo.  Maldura) 

Terracina,  paschal  candlestick  of  cathedral  (Photo.  Moscioni) 

Ferentino,  ciborium  of  high  altar  of  cathedral  (Photo.  Moscioni) 

Ferentino,  detail  of  ciborium  (Photo.  Moscioni) 

S.  Maria  in  Cosmedin,  inside  of  choir-precinct      .... 

S.  Elia  (near  Nepi),  ciborium  of  high  altar  (Photo.  Moscioni) 
S.  Alessandro,  altar  and  confession       ...... 

S.  Giorgio  in  Velabro,  altar  and  confession  (Photo.  Moscioni)     . 

SS.  Giovanni  e  Paolo,  apse  and  street  (Photo.  Alinari) 

SS.  Vincenzo  ed  Anastasio,  interior  (Photo.  Maldura) 

S.  Maria  sopra  Minerva,  interior  (Photo.  Anderson)     . 

Maria  in  Cosmedin,  bell-tower  or  campanile  (Photo.  Moscioni)     . 

S.  Giorgio  in  Velabro,  exterior      ....... 

Terracina,  bell-tower  or  campanile  of  cathedral  (Photo.  Moscioni) 

S.  Lorenzo,  cloister  (Photo.  Moscioni) 

S.  Cosimato,  cloister  (Photo.  Anderson) 

Subiaco,  cloister  of  S.  Scolastica  (Photo.  Moscioni) 

S.  John  Lateran,  detail  of  cloister  (Photo.  Moscioni) 

Palace  of  Crescentius  (Photo.  Anderson) 

Window  in  house  of  Piazza  Capranica  (Photo.  Moscioni) 

Corneto,  court  of  Vitelleschi  Palace  (Photo.  Anderson) 


I    INDEX  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS  397 

PAGE 

Cometo,  Gothic  windows  in  Vitelleschi  Palace  (Photo.  Anderson)         .  215 

Celano,  castle  (Photo.  Moscioni)             .......  217 

Nepi,  castle  and  fortifications  (Photo.  Anderson)          ....  219 

Palace  of  the  Anguillara,  in  Trastevere  (Photo.  Anderson)  .          .          .  220 

Statue  of  Hippolytus,  Bishop  of  Porto          ......  222 

Bronze  statue  of  S.  Peter     .........  223 

Statue  of  Constantine,  Lateran  (Photo.  Alinari)             ....  223 

Sculptures  on  Arch  o    Constantine  (Photo.  Anderson)           .          .          ,  226 

Sarcophagus  in  Lateran  Museum           .......  228 

S.  Sabina,  carved  wooden  doors  (Photo.  Alinar")           ....  229 

S.  Sabina,  panel  of  wooden  doors          .......  230 

S.  Bartolommeo  all'  Isola,  well  of  relics  (Photo.  Maldura)    .         .          .  235 

S.  Paul,  paschal  candlestick           ........  236 

Statue  of  S.  Peter  at  S.  John  Lateran  (Photo.  Maldura)       .          .          .  238 

Statue  of  S.  Peter  at  S.  Croce  in  Gerusalemme  (Photo.  Maldura)          .  238 

S.  John  Lateran,  frieze  of  cloister  (Photo.  Moscioni)    ....  239 

Anagni,  top  of  paschal  candlestick  of  cathedral  (Photo.  Moscioni)        .  240 

Tomb  of  Card.  Fieschi,  S.  Lorenzo  (Photo,  Alinari)      ....  241 

Tomb  of  the  Savelli,  S.  Maria  in  Aracceli      ......  242 

Tomb  of  Pope  Hadrian  V,  S.  Francesco,  Viterbo           ....  243 

Ciborium  at  S.  Cecilia  by  Amolfo          .......  244 

Tomb  of  Card.  Ancher  at  S.  Prassede,  by  Arnolfo  (Photo.  Alinari)       .  246 
S.  Maria  Maggiore,  detail  of  chapel  of  presepe,  by  Arnolfo  (Photo. 

Maldura) 247 

S.  Cecilia,  angle  of  ciborium  by  Arnolfo  (Photo.  Maldura)             .          .  248 

Tomb  of  Card.  d'Acquasparta,  at  S.  Maria  in  Araccsli,  by  G.  Cosmati  .  251 

Figure  from  De  Surdis  tomb  at  S.  Balbina             .....  252 

Tabernacle  at  S.  Clemente  (Photo.  Moscioni)        .....  253 

S.  Angelo  in  Formis,  interior  (Photo.  Moscioni)             ....  255 

S.  Costanza  (Constantia),  detail  of  lost  mosaics  of  dome      .         .         .  261 
S.  Costanza  (Constantia),  mosaics  of  annular  vault     .         .         .      262,  263 

S.  Pudentiana,  apse  mosaic           ........  266 

S.  Pudentiana,  Christ  in  apsidal  mosaic  (Photo,  Anderson)           .          .  268 

S.  Pudentiana,  apostles  in  apsidal  mosaic  (Photo.  Anderson)        .          .  269 

S.  Sabina,  mosaic  of  Church  of  the  Circumcision  (Photo.  Anderson)    .  273 

SS,  Cosma  e  Damiano,  Christ  in  apsidal  mosaic  (Photo.  Anderson)      .  275 

House  of  John  and  Paul,  painted  decoration  (Photo,  Moscioni)             ,  276 

House  of  John  and  Paul,  fresco  of  Orante  (Photo.  Moscioni)        ,         .  277 

S.  Lorenzo,  mosaic  of  triumphal  arch             ......  280 

S.  Venanzio  (Lateran),  mosaic      ........  284 

S.  Saba,  head  frorfi  apse  of  lower  church      ......  288 

S.  Saba,  saint  from  apse  of  lower  church      ......  289 

S.  Saba,  Greek  eremites 290 

S.  Saba,  head  of  Christ 291 

S.  Saba,  miracles  of  Christ 292 

S.  Maria  Antiqua,  the  Crucifixion  (Photo,  Anderson)             .          .          ,  295 

SS.  Nereo  ed  Achilleo,  mosaic  on  face  of  apse  (Photo,  Alinari)     .          .  296 

S.  Prassede,  mosaics  of  triumphal  arch  and  apse  (Photo,  Anderson)    .  302 

S.  Prassede,  mosaic  vault  of  chapel  S.  Zeno  (Photo,  Alinari)         .          .  303 

S.  Maria  in  Domnica,  apsidal  mosaic              .          .          .          ,    .     .          .  304 

S.  Clemente,  fresco  of  Ascension  of  Christ    ......  307 


398  INDEX  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS    ^ 

PAGE 

S.  Elia  (near  Nepi),  female  saints  and  archangel  (Photo.  Moscioni)     .  311 

S.  Urbano  alia  Caffarella,  fresco  of  Crucifixion  (Photo.  Moscioni)          .  314 
S.  Clemente,  frescos  in  lower  church               .          .          .          .          .          .317 

Grottaf errata,  apsidal  mosaic  in  monastic  church         .  .  .  ,319 

S.  Clemente,  apse  mosaic      .........  320 

S.  Maria  Nuova,  apse  mosaic  (Photo.  Anderson)           ....  321 

S.  Maria  in  Trastevere,  apsidal  mosaics  (Photo.  Anderson)           .          .  322 
Subiaco,  frescoed  vault  of  lower  church  of  Sacro  Speco  (Photo.  Mos- 
cioni)   ............  325 

S.  Maria  in  Trastevere,  mosaic  of  birth  of  Virgin  by  Cavallini      .          .  332 

S.  Saba,  Giottesque  Crucifixion  in  upper  church           ....  335 

S.  John  Lateran,  apse  mosaic      .           .......  337 

S.  Maria  Maggiore,  apse  mosaic             .......  338 

S.  Lorenzo,  mosaic  choir-stalls  and  throne  (Photo.  Moscioni)       .          .  354 

Toscanella,  facade  of  S.  Pietro  (Photo.  Anderson)      .            ...  363 

Civita  Castellana,  fagade  of  cathedral  (Photo.  Moscioni)      ,          .          ,  368 

Terracina,  mosaic  frieze  of  porch  of  cathedral  (Photo.  Moscioni)           .  371 

II 

Acquasparta,  tomb  of  Card.          ........  251 

Emilia,  basilica,  restored     .........  34 

S.  Agnese,  interior        ..........  91 

capital      ............  88 

Alba  Fucense,  ambone          .........  176 

S,  Alessandro,  altar      .         .          .          .          .         .          .          .          .          .  182 

Anagni,  cathedral,  candlestick      ........  240 

sacred  vestment        ..........  141 

Ancher,  tomb  of  Card.           .........  246 

S.  Angelo  in  Formis,  interior         ........  255 

Anguillara  Palace                    .          .          .          .          .          .          .          .          .  220 

S.  Bartolommeo,  well  of  relics      ........  235 

Bassus  (Junius),  basilica       .........  20 

Capranica,  house  in  Piazza            ........  213 

capitals     ............  69 

S.  Cecilia,  ciborium 244,  248 

Celano,  Castle 217 

Civita  Castellana,  portal       .  „         .         ^         .         .  .         .      134,  166 

choir-seats         ...........  140 

fagade , 368 

S.  Clemente,  choir-screen      .........  72 

capital       ............  74 

plan 124 

interior     ...........      126,  170 

propylon             ...........  158 

atrium       ...,...,.,..  159 

pavement           ...........  172 

tabernacle          .          .         .          .          .          .          ....          .          .  253 

frescos       ...........      307,  317 

apse  mosaic       ...»         ......         .  320 


INDEX  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS  399 

PAGE 

S.  Constantia,  mausoleum     ........   28,  29,  30 

mosaics  261,  262,  263 

Constantine,  arch  of      ........  .        21,  226 

basilica  of  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .        19 

statue  of 223 

Corneto,  Vitelleschi  Palace 214,  215 

S.  Cosimato,  cloister  .  .  .  .  .  .  .         .  .     200 

SS.  Cosma  e  Damiano,  m^osaic      .......         73,  273 

S.  Costanza,  see  S.  Constantia. 

Crescentius,  palace  of  .........     210 

Dalmatic  of  Charlemagne     .........     108 

S.  Elia  (Nepi),  interior 112 

doorway  ............  165 

ciborium  ............  181 

frescos       ............  311 

S.  Felicita,  fresco  ..........       56 

Ferentino,  cathedral,  pulpit  .  .  .  .  .  .  .         .174 

ciborium  ..........      178,  179 

Fieschi,  tomb        ...........     241 

S.  Giorgio  in  Velabro,  altar  ........     183 

exterior     ............     192 

SS.  Giovanni  e  Paolo,  exterior      ........     184 

Grottaf errata,  mosaic  .  .      •  .  .  .  .  .  .  .319 

Hadrian  V,  tomb  of 243 

Hippolytus,  statue  of   .........  .     222 

SS.  John  and  Paul,  house,  frescos 276,  277 

S.  John  Lateran,  baptistery  ........        64 

general  view      ...........     127 

tabernacle  ...........     148 

cloister 203,  239 

mosaic      ............     337 

Lateran,  see  S.  John  Lateran. 

S.  Lorenzo,  architrave           .........  86 

interior 136,  169 

exterior    ............  160 

cloister 197 

Fieschi,  tomb    ...........  241 

mosaic       ............  280 

choir-stalls         ...........  354 

S.  Maria  Antiqua,  interior     .  .  .  ,  .  .  ,  .  .84 

frescos       .  ...........     295 

S.  Maria  in  AraccEli,  interior         .  .         .  .  .  .  .  .114 


400  INDEX  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

S.  Maria  in  Cosmedin,  choir           ........  104 

capitals     ............  112 

carved  slab        ...........  123 

ambone     ............  175 

interior     ............  180 

campanile          .          .          .          .          .          .          .  '       .          .          ,          .  188 

S.  Maria  in  Domnica,  mosaic         ........  304 

S.  Maria  Maggiore,  interior            .          .          .          .          .          .          .          .  168 

presepe  sculptures     .          .          .          .          .          .          .          .          .          .  252 

mosaic       ............  338 

S.  Maria  sopra  Minerva,  interior            .          .          .          ...          .          .  187 

S.  Maria  Nuova,  mosaic        .........  321 

S.  Maria  in  Trastevere,  interior    ........  129 

mosaic 322,  332 

S.  Marta,  doorway         .          .          .          .          .    '     .          .          .          .          .  165 

S.  Martino,  choir-screen        .........  23 

interior     ............  70 

Nepi,  fortifications        ..........  219 

SS.  Nereo  ed  Achilleo  ..........  41 

mosaic       .          .          .          .          .          .          .          .          .          .          .          .  296 

Ninfa,  mediseval  ruins            .          .          .          .          .          .          .          .          .  131 

Pammachius,  hospital  of,  at  Porto        .......       49 

S.  Paul,  basilica .  .  40,  48,  49 

cloister  ...........     138 

candlestick        .  ...'.......     236 

S.  Peter,  basilica 25,  26,  27 

throne 87 

statues 143,  223,  238 

S.  Pietro  in  Vincoli,  interior  ........       61 

Ponte  Nomentano         ..........         4 

S.  Prassede,  propylon  ..........     158 

mosaics 302,  303 

S.  Pudentiana,  mosaics .261,  268,  269 

S.  Saba,  interior  ...........      120 

portico      ............      163 

frescos 288,  289,  290,  291,  292,  335 

S.  Sabina,  marble  incrustation      ........       57 

interior      .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .58 

carved  doors 229,  230 

mosaic       .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     273 

Sarcophagus  in  Lateran  Museum  .......     228 

Savelli,  tomb  of  242 

S.  Stefano,  capitals        ..........       63 

S.  Stefano  Rotondo 66,  67 

Subiaco,  cloister  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .201 

fresco  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .    ^'  .     325 

Surdis  (de),  tomb,  at  S.  Balbina  .,,....     252 


INDEX   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS  401 

PAGE 

Terracina,  cathedral,  candlestick 177 

campanile  ...........  193 

mosaic  frieze     .  .  .  .  .  •  .  .  •  .^        •  371 

Toscanella,  S.  Pietro,  exterior       .  .  .  .  .  .  ."       .  363 

S.  Urbano  alia  Cafifarella,  fresco  .  .  .  .  .  ...     314 

S.  Venanzio,  mosaic      .  .  .  .  •  .  •  ...  •      284 

SS.  Vincenzo  ed  Anastasio,  exterior      .  .  .  .  .  .  .164 

interior 186 

Viterbo,  tomb  of  Hadrian  V  ........     243 

Windows .60 


2d 


INDEX   LIST   OF   CHURCHES 


(To  supplement  Text) 


S.  AGATA  IN  SUBURRA.  Origin 
unknown,  but  eariy.  Its  apse  was 
decorated  in  460-467  by  mosaic  of 
Christ  and  apostles,  a  gift  of  the 
barbarian  general,  Ricimer.  It 
then  became  the  cathedral  or 
national  church  of  the  colony  of 
Arian  Goths  in  Rome.  It  was 
given  back  to  Catholic  worship 
and  redecorated  by  Gregory  the 
Great,  who  made  it  a  diaconal 
church.  In  the  eighth  century 
a  monastery  was  annexed  to  it  by 
Gregory  II.  In  the  eleventh  cen- 
tury it  was  restored  by  Leo  IX. 

Church  and  monastery  were  re- 
modernized  at  close  of  sixteenth 
century,  but  the  ancient  walls  and 
the  twelve  widely  spaced  granite 
columns  remain. 

S.  AGNESE.  Built  by  Constantine 
over  the  tomb  of  the  martyr  at 
the  third  mile  on  Via  Nomentana; 
decorated  by  Constantina.  It  was 
restored  by  Pope  Symmachus  and 
rebuilt  by  Honorius  I. 

Placed  at  so  low  a  level,  it  is 
reached  by  a  long,  wide  stairway, 
descending  at  right  angles.  Un- 
able to  have  an  atrium,  this  is 
replaced  by  a  closed  narthex.  The 
nave  has  14  columns  beside  the 
pilasters  at  apse  and  narthex.  It 
is  9.42  m.  wide  and  21.10  m.  long, 
with  an  apse  7.80  m.  in  diameter. 
The  aisles  are  extremely  narrow, 
2.60  m.  Above  them  and  the  nar- 
thex is  a  high,  open  gallery,  with 
an  equal  number  of  columns  and 
arcades. 


It  is  uncertain  how  much  belongs 
to  Constantine;  how  much  to 
Honorius  I.  The  present  apse  was 
undoubtedly  the  work  of  Hono- 
rius, who  utilized  for  the  rest 
much  Constantinian  material. 

While  the  apsidal  decoration 
of  veined  marble  and  porphyry  is 
also  of  Honorius,  the  greater  part 
of  the  furniture  and  decoration 
was  renovated  between  1225  and 
1250,  when  the  galleries  and  aisles 
were  filled  with  important  frescos, 
and  the  schola  cantorutn  decorated 
with  screens  and  pulpits. 

In  the  twelfth  century  a  monas- 
tery was  added,  of  which  some 
fragments  remained  until  1905. 

ALESSIO.  Original  connected 
with  S.  Boniface.  Alberic  trans- 
formed his  palace  in  this  part  of 
the  Aventine  into  a  monastery. 
In  977  Pope  Benedict  gave  it  to 
the  Greek  clergy  and  monks,  and 
the  monasteries  here  became  very 
important.  To  this  time  a  con- 
siderable part  of  the  present  struc- 
tures belong,  including  the  crypt, 
which  is  the  most  important  in 
Rome,  where  so  few  exist. 

To  the  revival  of  the  close  of  the 
twelfth  century  belong  the  fine 
central  doorway  with  mosaic  inlay 
and  the  campanile. 
ANASTASIA.  One  of  the  largest 
g,nd  earliest  churches;  third  in 
rank,  immediately  after  the  Lat- 
eran  and  S.  Maria  Maggiore. 
There  were  30  columns  in  the  nave. 
In  403  a  baptistery  was  attached  to 


403 


404 


INDEX  LIST  OF  CHURCHES 


it.  It  became  the  principal  church 
of  the  Byzantine  officials.  It  was 
partly  ruined  by  the  earthquake  of 
1638 ;  and  the  interior  was  modern- 
ized with  the  use  of  the  antique 
columns,  now  set  against  the  Ba- 
rocco  piers.  The  ancient  brick 
walls  remain  in  great  part. 

S.  BALBINA,  Especially  interest- 
ing as  a  hall  church  of  pagan  origin 
of  the  Constantinian  age,  never 
transformed  by  the  addition  of 
columns.  Its  apse  is  remarkable 
for  the  niche  in  the  thickness  of 
the  wall  to  receive  the  bishop's 
seat.  The  lower  walls,  with  their 
alternation  of  tufa  and  brick,  are 
early. 

S.  BARTOLOMMEO  ALL'  ISOLA. 
Also  originally  called  S.  Adalbert. 
Rebuilt  by  Paschal  II  (c.  1113); 
damaged  by  the  earthquake  of  1557, 
which  destroyed  the  facade.  The 
nave  has  14  columns  of  unequal 
heights  and  sizes,  with  different 
bases,  but  with  capitals  made  to  fit 
the  shafts.  The  level  of  the  pave- 
ment has  been  raised.  The  cornice 
of  the  roof  of  choir  and  nave  is  ex- 
tremely interesting,  with  stone 
consols  elaborately  carved  with 
Byzantine  designs.  It  seems  not 
later  than  Paschal  II. 

S.  CECILIA.  Recent  excavations 
and  restorations  have  increased 
the  interest  of  this  church  and  its 
site.  At  a  much  lower  level  than 
the  present  was  found  the  lower 
part  of  a  large  Roman  house, 
variously  surmised  to  be  that  of 
the  Caecilii  or  that  of  Caecilia's 
husband.  Valerian,  whom  she  con- 
verted; more  probably  the  latter. 
Pope  Urban,  says  the  legend, 
turned  the  house  into  a  church.  A 
regular  basilica  was  built  here  in 
the  fourth  or  fifth  century.  Pas- 
chal I  found  the  church  and  the 
neighboring  monastery  in  ruins, 
and  rebuilt  it.  The  ground-plan 
of  the  earlier  church  has  been  dis- 


covered, a  little  to  the  left  of  the 
present  and  on  a  smaller  scale. 
Under  Gregory  VII  a  restoration 
was  commenced  which  continued 
into  the  twelfth  century.  At  that 
time  the  porch  and  the  campanile 
were  built.  Later,  at  the  close  of 
the  thirteenth  century,  an  even 
more  radical  beautifying  took 
place  under  the  direction  of  Ar- 
nolfo  and  Pietro  Cavallini,  ending 
in  about  1283.  This  involved 
covering  the  walls  with  a  series  of 
grandiose  frescos,  erecting  a  ci- 
borium,  altar,  confession,  paschal 
candlestick,  choir  seats,  taber- 
nacle for  holy  oils,  etc.  Mean- 
while the  monastery  had  also  been 
rebuilt.  Its  cloister  remains.  The 
mosaic  frieze  of  the  porch  does  not 
belong  to  the  ninth  century  but 
to  the  twelfth  to  thirteenth  centu- 
ries. In  the  recent  fearsome  resto- 
ration of  the  interior  it  was  found 
that  the  Barocco  vandals  had  so 
disfigured  the  ancient  columns 
when  they  built  the  piers  around 
them  that  it  would  be  impossible 
to  free  them. 

S.  CLEMENTE.  The  present  inte- 
rior of  c.  1100  has  16  Ionic  columns 
divided  by  an  oblong  pier  into  two 
almost  equal  sections.  The  archi- 
volts  of  the  arcades  are  modernized ; 
so  are  the  capitals.  The  side  aisles 
are  of  unequal  width  (N.  c.  14  ft. ; 
S.  c.  19  ft.),  as  are  also  those  of  S. 
Sabina,  S.  Anastasia,  and  others. 
The  interior  is  40.28  m.  long  and 
the  nave  is  10.88  m.  wide.  Por- 
tions of  the  monastic  buildings  of 
the  twelfth  century  remain.  The 
entire  group,  including  atrium 
and  propylon,  is  the  most  complete 
in  Rome. 

S.  CRISOGONO.  An  eariy  basilica 
existed  here  at  a  lower  level  in  the 
fourth  or  fifth  century,  as  it  is 
mentioned  in  the  time  of  Sym- 
machus  (499).  It  is  now-  being 
excavated. 


INDEX  LIST  OF  CHURCHES 


405 


In  731  it  was  restored  by  Greg- 
ory III,  who  covered  the  walls 
with  frescos,  renewed  the  roof  and 
the  apse,  and' donated  a  ciborium 
of  silver.  He  added  a  large  and 
iinjwrtant  monastery. 

Having  fallen  into  ruin,  both 
church  and  monastery  were  re- 
built at  the  expense  of  the  famous 
John  of  Crema,  apwDstolic  legate 
and  cardinal  priest  of  this  church. 
The  work  was  executed  between 
c.  1120  and  1130.  An  inscription 
of  1123  speaks  of  the  dedication  of 
an  oratory  and  the  construction 
of  all  the  monastic  buildings  in- 
cluding the  cloisters.  The  church 
was  consecrated  in  1129. 

The  Benedictines  had  charge 
until  1200,  when  it  was  transferred 
by  Innocent  III  to  the  secular 
clergy. 

The  church  is  preceded  by  a 
porch  and  has,  on  the  right,  a  very 
hea\'y  campanile,  of  the  twelfth 
century,  but  plastered. 

The  interior,  with  superb  an- 
tique columns,  has  been  partially 
renovated.  In  Ugonio's  time  it 
preserved  its  "Cosmati"  details: 
ciborium,  altar,  confession,  choir 
seats,  and  throne.  The  capitals 
of  the  superb  antique  columns 
appear  to  have  all  been  stuccoed 
by  Cardinal  Borghese  in  1633 ! 
The  pavement  is  one  of  the  most 
superb  examples  of  mosaic  work 
in  Rome,  probably  by  Paulus  and 
his  school. 
S.  CROCK  IN  GERUSALEMME. 
Originally  the  large  hall  of  the 
Sessorian  palace  belonging  to  the 
Empress  Helena.  The  palace  re- 
mained imperial  property  until  the 
Gothic  war.  Helena  transformed 
the  hall  into  a  church;  hence  it 
was  called  Basilica  Hcleniana  in 
the  fifth  century.  It  was  also 
called  "Hierusalem."  The  Em- 
press Placidia  and  her  children 
were  its  benefactors  in  425. 


It  was  made  a  regular  titular 
church  by  Gregory  the  Great.  Its 
roof  fell  c.  720,  and  Gregory  II,  in 
restoring  it,  added  two  rows  of 
columns.  Its  wide  apse  proves 
that  originally  it  was  a  hall  church 
without  colonnades. 

In  975  Benedict  VII  built  a  large 
monastery  next  to  it,  which  was 
given  in  c.  1050  by  Leo  IX  to  the 
Benedictines  of  Monte  Cassino. 

The  necessary  work  of  renova- 
tion after  the  Gregorian  revival 
was  accomplished  by  Popes  Lucius 
II  and  Eugenius  III,  1144-1148, 
to  whom  were  due  the  fagade,  the 
bell-tower,  the  large  cloister,  all 
the  monastic  buildings,  and  a  large 
part  of  the  church  furniture. 

They  retained  their  mediaeval 
form,  as  shown  by  a^  number  of 
old  prints,  until  Benedict  XIV, 
who  destroyed  the  old  portico  in 
1744,  and  concealed  the  old  facade, 
which  is  erroneously  considered  to 
have  been  destroyed,  behind  a 
Barocco  structure. 

The  present  interior  is  of  c.  1744, 
but  all  the  outer  walls  are  classic 
or  mediaeval,  and  show  that  the 
basilica  never  had  the  usual  low 
side-aisles.  In  fact  its  exact  medi- 
aeval form  has  not  yet  been  de- 
monstrated and  its  original  form  is 
also  somewhat  of  a  puzzle.  It  de- 
ser\^es  careful  study. 
S.  GIORGIO  IN  VELABRO.  This 
is  one  of  the  most  characteristic 
and  untouched  of  the  smaller  medi- 
aeval churches  of  Rome,  with  parts 
belonging  to  both  the  Byzantine 
and  the  later  eras.  It  was  a  di- 
aconal  church  c.  600;  was  prob- 
ably restored  by  Leo  II  (682-683), 
who  added  the  cult  of  S.  Sebastian 
to  that  of  S.  George.  Zacharias 
rebuilt  it.  Gregory  IV  decorated 
the  apse  with  mosaics.  The  archi- 
traved  portico  and  the  sturdy 
campanile  were  added  to  the  plan 
in   the   twelfth    century.     This   is 


406 


INDEX  LIST  OF   CHURCHES 


evident  from  the  fact  that  the 
foundations  of  the  campanile  fill 
the  first  bay  of  the  left  aisle. 

The  interior  is  of  the  sixth  or 
seventh  century.  There  are  six- 
teen shafts,  all  ancient,  of  various 
sizes  and  sources.  All  the  capitals 
on  the  left  are  ancient  and  Corin- 
thian :  of  those  on  the  right  two  are 
ancient  Corinthian  and  four  an- 
cient Ionic.'  The  two  required  to 
complete  the  series  are  crude  imi- 
tations of  Ionic  with  uncarved 
volutes  (eleventh  century). 

An  interesting  doorway  opening 
out  of  the  right  aisle  is  the  best 
preserved  detail  of  the  primitive 
church. 

Only  the  apse  has  preserved  in 
part  its  original  features  in  its 
marble  revetment  and  mosaic 
pavement  of  the  seventh  century. 

Here  and  there  are  scattered 
fragments  of  the  choir-screen  and 
ciborium  which  belonged  to  the 
pre-Cosmati  decoration  of  the 
seventh  to  eighth  centuries.  The 
present  confession,  altar,  and  ci- 
borium belong,  like  the  atrium  and 
campanile,  to  the  twelfth  century 
and  are  among  the  best  preserved 
groups  of  their  class. 

A  considerable  number  of  Byz- 
antine funerary  inscriptions  show 
that  this  was  a  favorite  church 
of  the  Greek  colony  in  the  seventh 
to  eighth  centuries. 
SS.  GIOVANNI  E  PAOLO.  Built 
c.  400  by  Pammachius  inside  the 
walls  of  the  private  palace  of  the 
martyrs  themselves,  its  lower  floor 
being  left  beneath  the  church,  and 
one  of  its  rooms,  where  the  mar- 
tyrdom took  place,  being  turned 
into  an  oratory.  The  basilica  was 
restored,  a  century  later,  by  Sym- 
machus,  then  by  Leo  III.  The 
interior  has  been  modernized, 
but  most  of  the  twenty  antique 
columns,  with  their  capitals,  have 
been    left    in    place,   though   piers 


have  been  inserted  between  them 
and  a  few  columns  have  been  re- 
moved to  make  room  for  the 
heaviest  piers. 

The  fine  porch  and  bell-tower 
belong  to  the  twelfth  century,  as 
also  does  the  pavement. 
S.  GIOVANNI  A  PORTA  LATINA. 
Its  origins  are  obscvire.  Restora- 
tions are  connected  with  the  names 
of  Leo  II  and  Hadrian  I,  when  it 
belonged  to  the  Lateran.     Lucius 

II  gave  it  to  the  Benedictine  nvms, 
and  it  was  restored  under  Celestine 

III  (1190),  who  dedicated  it. 

It  is  in  poor  condition.  The 
porch  was  an  early  arcaded  struc- 
ture, badly  restored,  but  probably 
of  the  seventh  to  eighth  centuries; 
while  the  campanile  is  a  fine 
twelfth-century  structure,  to  which 
date  the  good  square  doorway, 
similar  to  that  of  SS.  Giovanni  e 
Paolo,  also  belongs.  The  interior 
has  interesting  elements  of  all 
three  periods  of  its  early  history; 
the  fifth(?),  the  eighth,  and  the 
twelfth.  The  ten  fine  antique 
columns  of  the  nave,  with  their 
well-shaped  arcades,  evidently  be- 
long to  the  primitive  church. 
Then,  to  the  middle  period,  of  say 
Hadrian  I,  are  some  remarkably 
good  pieces  of  the  usual  low-relief 
decoration,  some  of  it  in  situ, 
some  of  it  used  as  material  by 
later  restorers.  Such  are  two 
pilasters  at  the  entrance  to  the 
apse  and  a  carved  frieze  now  form- 
ing a  step  of  the  main  altar.  To 
the  twelfth  century  belong  the 
mosaic  pavement  and  the  fine 
mosaic  altar. 
S.  JOHN  LATERAN.  The  present 
basilica  of  S.  John  Lateran  ap- 
pears to  have  retained  but  little 
that  is  early  Christian  or  mediseval 
since  its  modernization  by  the 
architect  Borromini,  and  it  is  dif- 
ficult to  say  how  much ,  of  what 
remains    belongs    to    the    original 


INDEX  LIST  OF   CHURCHES 


407 


church  of  Constantine  and  how 
much  to  the  two  great  reconstruc- 
tions, that  of  904  and  that  of  the 
fourteenth  centurj^,  after  the  two 
fires.  Before  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tuiy  the  basihca  had  five  aisles. 
The  nave  was  supported  by  36 
large  columns  with  both  Ionic  and 
Corinthian  capitals,  all  from  an- 
cient buildings.  Their  irregidar- 
ity  would  point,  not  to  the  time  of 
Constantine,  but  to  that  of  Sergius. 
These  columns  are  incorporated 
in  the  present  piers.  The  archi- 
trave of  the  twelfth-century  porch 
is  also  incorp>orated  in  that  of 
Borromini. 
S.  LORENZO  IN  LUCINA.  This 
early  basilica  was  at  first  called, 
in  the  fourth  century,  titidus  Lti- 
cince,  from  the  matron  on  whose 
property  it  was  built.  It  was 
associated  with  S.  Lawrence  as 
early  as  the  fifth  century,  when  it 
was  an  important  stational  church. 
It  was  restored  by  Benedict  II 
(685)  and  again  by  Hadrian  I.  It 
had  an  important  cemetery  in 
connection  with  its  atrium,  many 
inscriptions  of  which  have  been 
imearthed. 

The  usual  reconstruction  took 
place  after  the  Guiscard  fire.  It 
must  have  begun  early  in  the  reign 
of  Paschal  II,  as  the  church  was 
again  in  use  in  1112.  This  recon- 
struction was  fundamental.  The 
church  was  consecrated  by  the 
anti-pope  Anacletus  in  1130,  but 
reconsecrated  by  Celestine  III  in 
1196  with  the  greatest  concourse 
of  clergy  and  people  seen  in  that 
generation. 

Only  the  campanile  and  the 
porch  remain  of  the  age  of  Paschal 
II.  The  rest  of  the  facade  and 
the  whole  interior  were  trans- 
formed in  1650. 

Ugonio  has  described  the  in- 
terior before  the  restoration  :  with 
ancient  frescos  on  the  apse,  prob- 


ably of  the  time  of  Paschal;  with 
the  throne  and  choir  seats  below, 
the  altar  and  confession,  and  the 
two-storied  choir-screen  or  ico~ 
nostasis,  with  the  inscription  of 
Paschal  II. 

I  expect  to  prove,  from  an  old 
drawing  of  the  apse-fresco,  that 
this  basiUca  was  built  by  Pope 
Sixtus  III,  and  is  really  the  basilica 
maior  of  S.  Lorenzo,  mentioned  in 
the  Liber  Pontijicalis.  This  the- 
ory was  suggested  by  Sig.  Santi 
Pesarini,  though  he  was  unaware 
of  the  apse-fresco,  with  its  figure 
of  Pope  Sixtus  III,  holding  the 
model  of  the  church,  and  proving 
his  connection  with  its  founda- 
tion. 
S.  MARIA  IN  ARACCELI.  This 
church  seems,  in  its  present  form, 
to  date  from  the  ninth  century,  be- 
fore 882.  It  became  the  national 
church  of  the  Roman  nobility  and 
people. 

Its  interior  has  22  ancient  col- 
umns ;  some  crowned  by  classic  cap- 
itals, others  by  medijeval  capitals  of 
the  ninth  century,  which  is  also 
the  date  of  part  of  the  pavement. 

When  the  church  and  monas- 
tery were  given  to  the  Franciscans 
in  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury, a  renovation  on  a  large  scale 
was  begun  but  never  completed. 
The  artists  Laurentius  and  Jaco- 
bus had  charge  of  the  decorative 
work  done  some  time  previously, 
and  Cavallini  of  the  pictorial  deco- 
ration at  the  close  of  the  thirteenth 
century-. 

The  transformation  into  a  semi- 
Gothic  church,  which  was  then 
planned,  was  to  include  a  pointed 
clerestory  and  a  fagade  with  wheel- 
window  and  mosaics,  of  which 
traces  remain. 

The  mediseval  interior  was 
gutted  by  Pope  Paul  IV,  and  its 
unrivalled  wealth  of  monuments 
nearly  destroyed. 


408 


INDEX  LIST  OF   CHURCHES 


S.  MARIA  IN  CAPPELLA,  OR  AD 
PINEAM.  I  expect  to  publish  a 
monograph  on  this  unknown 
church.  It  is  very  small,  but  in 
such  good  preservation  as  to  be 
one  of  the  most  interesting  of  the 
mediseval  buildings  in  Rome. 

An  inscription  gives  the  date  of 
its  dedication  as  1090.  The  simple 
fagade  has  a  central  gable  with  a 
round-headed  window  over  a 
single  round-headed  doorway;  and 
with  a  small  bell-tower  rising  on 
the  right  side,  flush  with  the  fagade, 
and,  extraordinary  to  say,  form- 
ing part  of  it.  Another  peculiar- 
ity is  the  inner  porch. 

The  nave  is  separated  from  the 
aisles  by  10  columns,  supporting, 
not  arcades,  but  architraves  of 
good  construction.  It  is  the  mod- 
est precursor  of  S.  Maria  in  Tras- 
tevere.  The  shafts  are  ancient, 
but  the  capitals  are  medi:Eval,  and 
seem  to  me  not  of  the  eleventh 
century,  but  rather  to  be  contem- 
porary with  some  at  S.  Maria  in 
Domnica,  and  of  the  ninth  cen- 
tury. 

S.  MARIA  IN  COSMEDIN.  Among 
the  least  spoiled  churches.  Re- 
cently restored  with  great  intelli- 
gence and  its  mediiBval  furniture 
reconstructed.  Its  history  and 
decoration  have  been  already  dis- 
cussed. Early  in  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury it  ranked  among  the  impor- 
tant churches,  being  one  of  the 
first  restored  after  the  Guiscard 
fire.  Several  Popes  were  then 
elected  here.  It  is  about  80  ft. 
long  and  67  ft.  wide.  It  has  both 
an  outer  porch  and  an  inner  nar- 
thex,  a  Byzantine  characteristic. 
Two  oblong  piers  divide  the  in- 
terior into  three  sections  of  four 
arcades.  Before  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury the  columns  supported  archi- 
traves, and  above  was  a  gallery 
for  the  women  of  the  congrega- 
tion, for  this  was  the  parish  church 


of  the  Greek  quarter  and  their 
liturgy  did  not  allow  of  the  placing 
of  the  women  below.  When  the 
church  was  restored,  in  c.  1112, 
this  ancient  peculiarity  was  done 
away  with,  the  galleries  closed  and 
the  arcades  substituted  for  the 
architraves. 

The  mosaic  pavement,  choir- 
screen  and  parapet,  ambones  and 
paschal  candlestick  are  now  approxi- 
mately as  they  were  in  the  twelfth 
century  and  rival  in  interest  the 
group  at  S.  Clemente. 
S.  MARIA  IN  DOMNICA.  It  is 
also  called  della  Navicella.  Time 
of  foundation  unknown,  but  prob- 
ably early  because  it  is  the  only 
church  which  has  retained  in  its 
name  the  word  dominicum,  which 
was  the  primitive  name  for  a 
chvirch.  It  stood  at  the  head  of  the 
diaconal  churches,  in  the  time  of 
Leo  III,  and  was  the  residence  of 
the  archdeacon. 

The  L.  P.  states  that  Paschal  I 
found  the  basilica  of  ancient  struc- 
ture and  ruinous,  and  that  he  re- 
built it  from  its  foundations  on  a 
larger  scale. 

The  exterior  has  been  entirely 
modernized  and  the  campanile 
destroyed.  The  interior  remains 
in  good  condition  and  has  a  col- 
lection of  capitals  unique  for  a 
study  of  the  technique  of  the  ninth 
centurj\  A  few  remain  from  the 
church  of  the  sixth  century  when 
it  was  probably  founded  or  rebuilt 
as  a  diaconal  church.  There  are 
18  columns  of  granite  of  varying 
sizes,  and  4  wall  piers.  The  apse 
is  framed  by  2  smaller  porphyry 
shafts  with  good  Ionic  capitals 
that  cannot  be  later  than  the  fifth 
century.  There  is  one  technical 
peculiarity  of  especial  interest. 
Capital  No.  3  on  the  right  is  un- 
finished, the  heavy  foliage  on  the 
bell  being  merely  blocked  ^t ;  and 
No.  2  is  finished  toward   the  nave 


INDEX  LIST  OF  CHURCHES 


409 


but    left    unfinished    toward    tlae 

S.  MARIA  MAGGIORE.  Next  to 
the  basilicas  of  S.  Peter,  S.  Paul, 
and  S.  John  Lateran,  the  largest 
church  in  Rome;  and  in  conse- 
quence of  the  complete  destruc- 
tion of  their  interiors  it  is  alone  in 
giving  an  idea  of  their  colonnaded 
effects. 

Its  interior  had  44  antique  Ionic 
columns  crowned  by  an  architrave. 
Its  length  is  77.60  m.  without  the 
apse,  which  has  a  diameter  of  13.80 
m.  Its  width  is  31.65  m.  Roughly 
speaking,  its  nave  is  16  m.  wide 
and  its  aisles  6  m.  wide.  Its  apse 
was  originally  open  in  the  lower 
part  of  its  semicircle  and  con- 
nected with  an  ambulacrum. 

The  usual  reconstruction  of  the 
twelfth  century  took  place  here 
under  Eugenius  III  and  his  suc- 
cessors, shortly  after  1150.  The 
porch,  the  pavement,  the  bell- 
tower,  the  closing  of  the  open 
apse,  date  from  this  time;  also  the 
pulpits  and,  probably,  the  rest 
of  the  choir  and  its  furniture. 

Sixtus  V,  in  1587,  made  the 
usual  clean  sweep  of  the  mediaeval 
choir  and  church  furniture,  cut 
into  the  nave  for  two  great  chapels, 
especially  that  of  the  presepe, 
thus  damaging  the  full  majesty 
of  its  long  architraves. 

S.  MARIA  IN  TRASTEVERE. 
First  built  by  Pope  Julius  I,  c.  340, 
under  the  name  of  titidus  Callixti 
or  titulus  lulii,  it  was  restored  by 
Pope  Celestine  early  in  the  fifth 
century,  after  the  capture  by 
Alaric.  In  the  first  years  of  the 
eighth  century,  Pope  John  VII 
decorated  it  with  frescos,  and  soon 
after  other  improvements  were  due 
to  Gregory  II  and  Gregory  III.  It 
was  enlarged  by  Hadrian  I,  and 
soon  after  fundamentally  trans- 
formed by  Gregory  IV,  c.  828,  who 
built  a  chapel  of  the  Prcesepe,   as 


at  S.  Maria  Maggiore,  and  raised 
the  pavement  of  the  choir  in  order 
to  build  under  it  a  crypt  for  the 
relics  of  SS.  Calixtus,  Cornelius, 
and  Calepodius.  He  added  a 
large  altar  and  ciborium.  Next 
to  the  church  he  built  a  monas- 
tery dedicated  to  Pope  Cornelius. 

Further  restorations  were  due 
to  Leo  IV  and  Benedict  III,  who 
rebuilt  the  crumbling  atrium,  with 
portico,  baptistery,  and  sacristies. 

At  the  revival  this  church  and 
its  dependencies  were  rebuilt  on 
a  higher  level  and  on  a  larger  scale. 
This  was  done  under  Innocent  II 
and  Innocent  III.  This  is  the 
present  building,  completed  in 
1148. 

Its  24  columns  of  brown  granite 
of  the  interior  and  the  4  of  the 
porch  are  supposed  to  have  been 
taken  from  the  Isaeum.  The 
corbels  of  the  cornice  of  the  archi- 
traves of  the  nave  are  interesting 
examples  of  the  use  of  antique 
fragments  in  systematic  fashion  by 
artists  of  the  twelfth  century. 

Under  the  porch  is  the  most 
interesting  collection  in  any  Ro- 
man church  of  fragments  of  the 
interior  sculptured  decoration  of 
the  basilica  at  different  periods 
from  the  fourth  to  the  twelfth 
centuries,  besides  two  tombs  of  the 
thirteenth  century.  The  doors  to 
the  side  aisles  are  unusually  fine 
in  their  foliated  decoration. 

As  a  whole  the  church  is  the 
finest  remaining  example  of  the 
art  of  the  middle  of  the  twelfth 
century.  This  applies  to  the  mo- 
saics of  facade  and  apse,  to  the 
pavement  and  church  furniture, 
as  well  as  to  the  construction. 
The  restorations  under  Pius  IX 
brought  to  light  remains  of  the 
choir  of  the  early  church,  —  pave- 
ment, tribunal,  apse,  frescos,  — 
between  Julius  I  and  Gregory  IV. 
S.    MARTINO   AI   MONTI.     Under 


410 


INDEX  LIST  OF  CHURCHES 


King  Theodoric,  Pope  Sym- 
machus  built  this  large  basilica 
above  the  Constantinian.  titulus 
Equitii.  Its  nave  has  24  antique 
columns  of  one  size  and  type. 
The  Corinthian  capitals,  how- 
ever, are  of  the  period  of  Sym- 
machus.  The  columns  support 
architraves,  whether  original  or 
not  cannot  be  seen,  owing  to  the 
Renaissance  stuecos.  The  8  col- 
umns near  the  fagade  are  more 
modern.  The  barbarous  moderni- 
zation took  place  just  before  1700. 
The  exterior,  especially  at  the 
apse  and  in  the  monastic  build- 
ings, has  interesting  brickwork  of 
the  times  of  Theodoric  and  the 
Carlovingian  Popes. 

S.  NICOLA  IN  CARCERE.  It  is 
built  in  the  Forum  olitorium  in 
the  ruins  of  two  temples  and  was 
one  of  the  early  diaconal  churches 
built  perhaps  by  Felix  IV  or  Boni- 
face IV.  It  underwent  the  usual 
remodelling  in  the  twelfth  century, 
being  rededicated  under  Honorius 
II  in  1128.  As  usual,  also,  the 
thirteenth  century  added  its  quota. 
Nicholas  III,  before  he  became 
Pope,  was  Giovanni  Orsini,  its 
cardinal  deacon  and  benefactor 
(1277).  It  received  its  present 
form  in  1599. 

The  interior  preserves  its  early 
plan.  Its  nave  has  seven  cohmms 
on  each  side  and  ends  in  a  trium- 
phal arch  and  a  transept  which  is 
supposed  to  be  an  addition  of  the 
twelfth  century.  The  14  shafts 
are  antique,  but  only  a  few  of  the 
capitals  seem  classic.  Four  are 
Ionic;  the  rest  Corinthian  and 
composite.  With  one  antique  ex- 
ception they  belong  to  the  fifth 
and  twelfth  centuries. 

Some  frescos  taken  from  here 
to  the  Christian  museum  of  the 
Lateran  are  imique  specimens  of 
a  school  of  the  twelfth  century. 

S.     PIETRO     IN     VINCOLL      The 


foundation  of  this  church,  in  the 
fifth  century,  by  Eudoxia  is  de- 
scribed on  pp.  61-62.  Its  nave  is 
divided  by  22  heavy  antique  fluted 
columns  with  Doric  capitals;  the 
interesting  archivolts  are  original. 
The  transept,  also,  is  original,  but 
the  brick  work  of  the  apse  is  me- 
diaeval (eighth  century).  All  the 
columns  appear  to  have  been 
taken  from  a  single  antique  build- 
ing. Nothing  is  left  of  the  old 
fagade,  campanile,  portico,  crypt, 
mosaics,  frescos,  church  furniture, 
etc.,  owing  to  the  usual  barbarous 
destruction  of  the  Renaissance,  due 
in  this  case  to  Sixtus  IV  and  Julius 
II. 

S.  PRASSEDE.  On  pp.  84-85  and 
108-109  the  origin  and  the  trans- 
formation of  this  church  under 
Paschal  I  are  discussed.  The 
fallacy  of  attributing  to  this  Pope 
the  transverse  arches  is  shown  by 
the  fact  that  in  order  to  build 
one  of  the  piers  which  support 
them,  a  tomb-slab  of  the  thirteenth 
to  fourteenth  centuries  was  cut  into. 
The  real  date  of  piers  and  arches 
is  the  Barocco  period,  and  the 
reason  may  have  been  the  perilous 
state  of  the  poorly  built  archi- 
traves of  the  nave. 

Before  the  seventeenth  century 
the  interior  was  like  that  of  S. 
Maria  Maggiore  or  S.  Maria  in 
Trastevere. 

S.  PUDENZIANA.  The  church  of 
the  titulus  Pudentis,  called  in  the 
fourth  century  Ecclesia  Puden- 
tiana,  is  one  of  the  earliest  and 
most  interesting  foundations  in 
Rome.  It  was  changed  from  a 
hall  church  into  a  three-aisled 
basilica  in  the  Constantinian  age, 
or  under  Siricius.  When  this 
change  was  made,  the  annexed 
structures  of  the  Baths  of  Novatus 
and  others  led  to  irregularities  in 
plan,  especialh^  in  the  curved  line 
given  to  the  columns  on  the  left. 


INDEX  LIST  OF  CHURCHES 


411 


near  the  fayade.  There  are  six 
columns  on  each  side,  with  capitals 
of  an  Egyptianizing  type  common 
in  the  fourth  century  and  of  ex- 
cellent workmanship.  These  col- 
umns have  been  barbarously  set 
into  Barocco  piers.  The  fagade 
was  reconstructed,  many  frescos 
added,  the  campanile  built  under 
Innocent  III,  who  renovated  the 
work  done  nearly  a  century  and  a 
half  before  by  Gregory  VII.  The 
work  of  mediaeval  artists  affected 
the  facade  more  than  the  interior, 
except,  of  course,  for  the  church 
furniture. 
SS.  QUATTRO  CORONATI.  This 
basilica  has  been  already  described. 
It  was  an  early  foundation,  rebuilt 
and  restored  by  Honorius  I  and 
Leo  IV.  Its  monastery  is  ancient 
and  unusually  imposing,  with 
foundations  as  early  as  Leo  IV. 
Together  with  the  church  it  was 
rebuilt  by  Paschal  II.  The  col- 
umns of  the  original  larger  and 
wider  nave  appear  in  the  refectorj' 
of  the  monastery,  in  the  outside 
walls,  and  in  the  atrium.  The 
8  granite  columns  of  the  present 
nave  were  placed  there  by  Paschal 
II,  who  built  the  gallery  also. 

The  plan  is  remarkable  for  the 
double  atrium  in  front  of  the 
church  with  the  campanile  in  front 
of  them,  and  a  double  portico 
against  the  fagade  of  the  church. 

The  mosaic  pavement  is  good ; 
beautiful  pieces  of  the  old  ambones 
and  choir-screen  are  worked  into 
the  pavement  of  the  apse.  The 
columns  of  the  gallery^  are  Ionic; 
those  of  the  nave  Corinthian  and 
composite.  A  central  pier  divides 
the  galleries  into  two  groups  of 
three  arcades  each. 

The  monastery  was  combined 
with  a  papal  palace  by  Paschal 
II.  The  chapel  of  S.  Silvester, 
opening  out  of  the  atrium,  is  an 
interesting    annex    of    the    group, 


with  original  pavement  and  frescos 
of  the  thirteenth  century. 
S.  SABINA.  One  of  the  least 
changed  of  Roman  churches. 
After  its  construction  in  425-432 
it  was  restored  by  Leo  III  and 
Eugenius  II.  It  was  then  that 
a  monastery  was  added,  whose 
cloister  even  then  took  the  place 
of  the  primitive  atrium,  and 
turned  the  open  porch  into  a  closed 
passage,  which  was  entered  from 
the  short  end,  which  alone  re- 
mained open  and  was  approached 
through  an  arched  portico.  This 
portico  is  attributed  to  the  elev- 
enth century,  but  it  is  either  later, 
or,  more  probably,  much  earlier 
and  built  in  the  ninth  century, 
under  Eugenius  II,  whose  artists 
renovated  the  choir  and  furniture 
and  used  the  columns  of  the  altar 
canopy  of  the  fifth  century  in  the 
reconstruction  of  the  porch. 

The  interior  has  24  Corinthian 
columns.  Though  its  structure  is 
unchanged  it  has  lost  nearly  all 
the  marble  incrustations  and  fig- 
ured mosaics  of  the  fifth  century 
that  together  covered  its  walls, 
all  the  choir  precinct  and  furni- 
ture of  the  ninth  century,  destroyed 
in  1683,  together  with  the  mosaic 
pavement.  The  style  of  this  decora- 
tion is  indicated  by  the  few  rescued 
fragments  that  have  been  pieced  to- 
gether and  restored  on  the  left  wall. 
It  was  one  of  the  stational  and 
baptismal  basilicas,  after  Gregory' 
the  Great,  and  among  the  most 
important  churches  of  Rome. 
This  importance  was  emphasized 
under  the  Popes  of  the  Savelli 
family  who  dominated  the  Aven- 
tine.  Honorius  III  and  Hono- 
rius IV  had  their  palatial  resi- 
dences here  ;  the  former  gave  it 
to  S.  Dominic  in  1216  and  he  made 
it  the  Roman  centre  of  his  new 
order,  building  the  still  existing 
beautiful  cloister. 


412 


INDEX  LIST  OF   CHURCHES 


S.  SINFOROSA.  This  suburbr:.ii 
basilica,  at  the  ninth  mile  on  the 
Via  Tiburtina,  abandoned,  prob- 
ably, at  the  time  of  the  Lombard 
raids,  under  Stephen  III,  is  a  rare 
example  for  two  reasons :  it  con- 
sists of  two  structures,  an  oratory 
and  a  basilica,  arranged  back  to 
back;  and  its  basilica  has  piers 
in  place  of  columns. 

The  oratory  is  square,  with  a 
large  apse.  Against  this  apse  is 
placed  that  of  the  basilica,  which 
is  about  40  m.  long  and  almost 
20  m.  wide,  and  is  divided  into 
3  aisles  by  6  piers.  It  is  prob- 
ably of  later  construction  than 
the  oratory. 

The  group  is  a  modest  form  of 
the  arrangement  at  Nola,  described 
by  S.  Paulinus. 

SS. '  VINCENZO  ED  ANASTASIO 
ALLE  TRE  FONTANE.  There 
are  three  churches  within  one 
general  precinct  of  the  monastery. 
The  largest,  though  not  the  earli- 
est, is  that  of  SS.  Vincenzo  ed 
Anastasio,  which  gives  its  name 
to  the  entire  group.  According 
to  an  unverified  tradition  both 
basilica  and  monastery  were  built 
by  Honorius  I,  c.  625.  They  were 
restored  by  Hadrian  I,  and  rebuilt 
from^  the  foundation  by  Leo  III  in 


798,  and  at  this  time  Charlemagne 
conferred  on  the  monastery  large 
estates. 

In  1128  Pope  Innocent  II  began 
to  renovate  the  monastery  and  in 
1140  induced  S.  Bernard  to  oc- 
cupy it  with  Cistercian  monks. 
Its  first  abbot,  Pietro  Pisano,  be- 
came in  1145  Pope  Eugenius  III. 
Most  of  the  present  buildings  were 
then  constructed.  Honorius  III 
decorated  with  frescos  and  con- 
secrated the  church  in  1221. 

No  part  of  the  buildings  can  be 
assigned  to  as  early  a  date  as  the 
seventh  century  (Honorius  I). 
At  most  that  part  of  the  walls  of 
the  monastery,  cloister,  and  church 
(as  well  as  entrance)  where  there 
is  a  mixture  of  stones  and  bricks 
can  be  attributed  to  the  time  of 
Charlemagne. 

The  reconstruction  under  Inno- 
cent II  left  only  one  side  of  the 
old  cloister  and  a  section  of  the 
wall  of  the  church,  which  was  en- 
tirely reconstructed.  The  unus- 
ual church,  with  its  piers  in  place  of 
columns,  its  attempted  vaulting, 
its  porch  and  window-panes,  are 
described  under  "Architecture." 
Also  its  chapter-house  and  cloister. 
The  refectory  is  modern. 


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